


The Rising

by Guede



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Dubious Consent, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fire Magic, Grief/Mourning, Jealousy, M/M, Major Illness, Minor Character Death, Politics, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Resurrection, Self-Sacrifice, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:48:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: Merlin takes certain steps to preserve his legacy.
Relationships: Arthur Castus/Guinevere, Arthur Castus/Guinevere/Lancelot, Arthur Castus/Lancelot
Comments: 17
Kudos: 7





	1. Prologue: In the Halls of the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LiveJournal in 2004.

After Badon Hill, Arthur had been quiet and docile and hollowed. He still acted the part of the leader well enough, but the fire behind the steel was wholly absent, and always his eyes looked inward to death. Guinevere did her best to involve him in matters of state and of living, and then in matters of comfort, but at the end of the third day beyond the battle, she confessed that she could do nothing against the way he welcomed the dark.

“He wants to follow his fallen,” she murmured, fine dress rumpling as she slumped against the tree. Her hands twisted and clenched in her lap, an uncharacteristic display of insecurity for her, and the lines around her mouth belonged to a much more beaten woman. “Sometimes I don’t think he even sees me. I’m merely another thing to be handled.”

Merlin leaned on his staff, weighing the loss of Arthur against the fragmenting tribes of Britain. They had held together long enough under threat of a common enemy, but now that both Romans and Saxons were gone from the land, they were beginning to fray into petty squabbles. He would not see that unraveling in his lifetime, and not simply because the Saxons still a menace in the sea-mists. A old man looked out of Merlin’s scarred skin and saw the deeds of his life with the unflinching gaze of experience that dismissed youth’s shallow glories and acknowledged only a few precious accomplishments.

“He suffers like I’ve never seen anyone to.” Guinevere pursed her lips and dug her nails into her palms as if she would find wisdom in such meaningless pain. “His body is healing—as well enough as he’ll let it--but he doesn’t respond to anything. Not really.”

Britain—the whole Britain, stretching her veil over all her peoples instead of having her mantle shredded by factions—had to be preserved. Merlin had done it in the past, and he’d hoped that Guinevere would be able to slide smoothly into his place, but the unceasing ache that had settled into his bones told him that they wouldn’t have enough time. She still had not gathered all the power she would need to support her intelligence and ability.

Arthur, however, did. Together they would do it, but in order for that to happen, Artorius first had to be preserved. And in order to preserve Arthur…

“His friend. Lancelot. He’s had to have seen so many deaths of his knights already…but somehow, this one was different.” To judge by the hard glitter in Guinevere’s eyes, she had more than an inkling of what that difference was.

“Arthur cannot be allowed to fall away,” Merlin finally said. He flexed his hands on his staff, feeling how much strength was left to him.

Guinevere’s head shot up, her angry confusion suddenly, surprisingly transmuted to cold defiance. She’d grown much since Merlin had last seen her. Much and far. As he’d hoped for, though he’d also known that the eventual confrontation would be far more painful than any prediction he might make. “If you hurt him—” she began, hands straying to the dagger she thought he hadn’t spotted.

That was a startling development. Merlin had assumed that any quarrel would simply be over influence, impersonal and political. “Hurting him would do nothing to further _our_ cause.”

“And as we’ve seen, there is more than one way to mortally injure him. I suggest you remember that. Merlin.” No, no deference now in this proud queen who held herself straight as his stick and as unyielding as steel.

“You’ve started to care for him.” Not an unusual outcome, but amusing to him nonetheless. Especially when he drew out the memory of the girl and set it next to the woman, who blushed but did not waver in her determination. “And I suggest that you remember who has seen more years and more brave warriors pass. Good day, Guinevere.”

As Merlin walked away, he could feel the suppressed rage and fear vibrating off her, but he paid it no heed. She was grown now, and like himself, she needed no help to walk her path.

* * *

Arthur was still recovering from his wounds and should have rightly been in bed, regaining his strength. If he did feel the need to stay up, he should have spent it working to preserve what Badon Hill had defended. In the immediate chaos following two retreats—Roman and Saxon—many weeds were springing up in every corner. For the sake of preserving the lives of his knights, he needed to stabilize the land, and quickly while the triumph of Badon Hill still clung to him.

Preservation of life and triumphs. The notions made him laugh, and the laughing made him stagger with the pain it drew from inside of him. His vision swam for a moment, tired as he was with nights of no sleep and constant hurt, but he willed himself steady and continued on. Guinevere had managed to distract him long enough from this last duty he owed. The burning was set for tomorrow, and he only had this one night.

When he ducked into the room where they were storing Lancelot’s body, he was startled to see someone leaning over the table. He’d thought that they had finished with…“Merlin!”

“Arthur.” The man appeared deceptively calm, given that he had ripped off the linens the other knights had swaddled around Lancelot. It would’ve been Arthur’s hands doing that task if Guinevere hadn’t been so adept at distracting him. And that thought combined with the present strange meeting to gorge Arthur’s throat with searing bile.

He grabbed Excalibur’s hilt and pulled his sword free, all sore exhaustion completely gone now. With every step he took toward the impassive, motionless Merlin, Arthur’s anger welled even higher. “Get away from him. And whatever you were doing—for the love of G—for the sake of your desired unity, can’t you leave my knights alone? Haven’t you done enough to them? Or are you so savage that you can’t let even the dead rest?”

“I don’t do this out of savagery.” Merlin failed to show a flicker of reaction, even when Arthur swung the tip of Excalibur against his throat. The candles Merlin must have lit wavered shadows over his face, striping it in place of his customary paint. His hands held on a few bunches of various herbs and a flask, while beside Lancelot’s head rested a small basin of water.

Arthur made the mistake of continuing his glance aside and instantly forgot about Merlin’s presence in his astonishment: Lancelot was virtually untouched by any kind of decay. Not the slightest whiff of rot reached Arthur’s nose, no putrid tones stained the blanched skin—in fact, the overall appearance was that of a man sleeping away a sickness. The implied hope in that thought almost dropped Arthur to his knees, and only the remembrance of Lancelot’s biting comment on that kept him from doing it. He certainly owed the obeisance.

“You’re not well.” 

A gliding at the edge of Arthur’s sight snapped his attention back to Merlin, who was slowly reaching for Excalibur. Snarling, Arthur forced the sword back against the other man’s neck. He had to hold it with both hands because it was growing so heavy, and even then the blade started to dip. Merlin’s gaze went with it, betraying an unexpected glimmer of worry; it would’ve been more rational for the man to feel relief at the move of the threat away from him.

Fever had been creeping at the edges of Arthur ever since he had looked down on Lancelot’s fallen body, nestled in the sweet green grass. In the immediate chaos after the battle, he’d not had the time to give in to it and so had kept pushing it back until he had thought it gone from him, with only dull chills in its place. Now, however, the heat prickled and consumed the soft weak flesh beneath his skin, devouring him from inside-out. A drop of sweat burned his eye, calling his attention to the faintness that was now spreading through him.

“You’re not well,” Merlin repeated.

Arthur smiled, and he didn’t intend it to be a pleasant one. “No, I’m not. But your battle is won, and your queen is well on her way.”

The walls were flashing from their previous faded brown to brilliant oranges and yellows and reds, exactly as how Arthur had always pictured Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace that had fruitlessly tried to burn the three Hebrews. In his own case, he had a feeling that the fire was well on its way to ending his life.

“Put down your sword, Arthur. This is not a battlefield, and you needn’t fight this.” Merlin carefully raised his hands and took Excalibur on his palms, then easily tugged it free of Arthur’s failing hold.

Weak as he was, Arthur wasn’t about to let his mother’s killer take his father’s sword. He lunged for it and caught one edge, then reeled back to grab listlessly at the edge of the table with his unhurt hand. The other one flailed and touched nothing as Arthur’s knees suddenly wrenched out from under himself. Desperate, he made one last snatch and felt his arm come down on something that was slightly yielding and warm. For one brief second, it held him from the floor, but things started sliding and Arthur couldn’t stay up. He fell, and so did a gasping, writhing, moaning—

Huge eyes stared at him, while Arthur’s cut hand froze on Lancelot’s shoulder. He’d already smeared blood from the man’s breastbone to the side of his throat, and a few stray drops had even landed on Lancelot’s lips, which were absently licked away as Lancelot prepared to speak.

Except Arthur was too far into the spiral of flame to hear anything except the thudding of his heart as it beat its way up his body and into his skull. “Merlin—you won’t live to see the—”

“No, I won’t.” And that sure, even voice and Lancelot’s panicked face were the last things Arthur knew before he pitched forward into searing darkness.


	2. Recollections

“What have you been doing to him? I didn’t throw myself at that Saxon so you could turn Arthur into a living skeleton!”

“I haven’t been _doing_ anything to him. It took Gawain and Bors two hours of arguing for him to even let the healers touch him yesterday.” Angry inhale, gentle touch on Arthur’s brow. “And I’m going to strangle them myself for their shoddy work.”

Equally furious seething breath by Arthur’s ear. Something long and leanly muscled curved against him, and fingers wrapped themselves around his arm. “What about what Merlin was doing?”

“I don’t know.” Guinevere. The name blazed in Arthur’s mind, trailing fractured remembrances of courage and deviousness and odd vulnerability in the smoothness of secretively wondering eyes. She was curt with uncertainty. “But he’s already paying for it, if that makes you feel better. Started coughing up blood just after we found you, and it doesn’t look as if he’ll last out the year.”

“No, it doesn’t. Seeing as he’s the only one who knows exactly what’s happened here.”

Lancelot. That was the other one, and as soon as Arthur felt the recognition strike home, he also felt crushing guilt that he hadn’t immediately known. There was something else he should know, something to do with why he was wishing both for Merlin’s throat breaking in his hands and for Merlin’s eternal good health. Something to do with—

\-- _fire_. Arthur shoved himself up and wildly stared about the room, searching for the source of the heat that had momentarily surged through him, but he found nothing except a woman white as a ghost and a shock to his soul.

For a long time, they simply stared at each other. At last Arthur’s reason reasserted itself and forced him to put the vision to the test. He slowly lifted a hand, which a detached part of himself noted was badly trembling, and grazed his fingertips against Lancelot’s forehead, feeling the fine hairs of one eyebrow tickle him. Almost sleepily, Lancelot’s eyelids fluttered shut and Arthur was encouraged to press his hand more firmly to the side of Lancelot’s face. His thumb just touched lips that parted ever-so-slightly for it, but Arthur continued stroking downward until he’d reached the spot where the arrow had ripped in death. His memory insisted on a ragged hole, lopsided because Guinevere had pulled out the bolt at an angle, but all his fingers found was a small ring of pale scar tissue, barely distinguishable from the rest of the white, white skin.

“You were darker than this before.” Inane words, but if Arthur even tried to put words to all the thoughts that were flinging themselves about his rattled mind, he would pass out again. As it was, he could still feel fever easing around his aching joints, softly calling for them to give way.

Lancelot winced and took Arthur by the shoulders, intently gazing into his eyes as if trying to will some kind of communication. “Arthur, it’s me. As I was. I swear by the sword of your father, whatever Merlin’s done to me, it hasn’t affected that.”

“I know.” The words were thick with grief abruptly relieved by confusion, and Arthur made no effort to disguise that because he simply couldn’t. Not when faced with this sudden reversal of fate—whether it was gift or curse, Arthur suddenly couldn’t care because it was Lancelot whose heart beat against his palm, whose nails gouged at his shoulders, whose worry shone out of dark intense eyes like it had for fifteen years, a rare constant. And a dependable and—“I know. I know—God, it is you—”

Old habits had hard departures, as evidenced by Arthur’s slip of the tongue and by his yanking Lancelot to him, burying his face in the other man’s shoulder and hiding there the emotions that had sprung up within him, fierce as the northern winds. He drowned himself in the utter solidity of the man in his arms and forgot about everything else. Guinevere became a mere shadow at the side, and his injuries distant dull throbs in comparison to a single shivering gasp.

A hand slapped against his back, then flattened out and clenched at his shoulderblade, nails scrabbling at his skin. The scratches were careful and light at first, but soon grew harder and deeper, scoring Arthur into jerking away. Startled and somehow hurt inside, he stared at a waxen-faced Lancelot that looked…terrified. “I’m sorry,” Arthur blurted.

“You’re…burning up.” Lancelot lifted his hand and hesitantly touched Arthur’s forehead, then yanked it away, as if he’d grazed a hot pot. “You were fine a moment ago—” twisting an accusation on Guinevere “—you touched him. And now he should be setting the sheets on fire because he’s—”

Arthur felt his own forehead, then slid his hand down to the back of his neck. He repeated the motion, but he still didn’t feel any such heat. “I don’t feel the fever…”

But Guinevere was too busy checking for herself, snatching her hand from his cheek and then lashing out Lancelot, a ferocious amount of rage and worry warring over her delicate features, twisting them almost to breaking. “I had _nothing_ to do with this. It was all Merlin’s doing—I don’t even know how you’ve come back!”

“No, I can believe that.” As muddled as Arthur’s senses currently were, even he couldn’t miss the meaningful contempt in Lancelot’s tone. The other man slowly swept his gaze down Guinevere, then back up to stop at the small golden circlet she wore. “It wouldn’t have been in your best interests, after all.”

Her pupils contracted to pinpricks that did little to diminish the fierceness of her glare, and she leaped off the bed to stand with fists clenched to her side. The fine dress she wore suddenly seemed too frail, too gentle to be capable of sheathing that stretched bowstring of a body. And then she was flashing with so many colors and fabrics, skin covered one second and bare the next, that Arthur felt his head whip into a spin. Determined not to pass out, Arthur bit down on his tongue till he felt blood generously well up. A little slipped out of the corner of his mouth; he was licking it away when Guinevere finally spoke.

Each word was a dagger. “You think I’m the threat.”

“Threats depend on circumstances.” Lancelot sat up and let the sheets fall from him, unconscious or uncaring of the nudity that disclosed. He pulled up a knee and casually draped his arm over it to present a front of complete insouciance. “Why did Merlin revive me? And why only me—unless all the dead of Badon Hill are up and about?”

“We buried Tristan yesterday,” Arthur said. Now that the first rush of elation had been washed away by the tension vibrating between Lancelot and Guinevere, Arthur could once again feel the exhaustion creep up on him. But when both of the others’ attention swung to him, he forced himself to stay awake and deal with the problem. “But—this shames me, but I don’t mourn him nearly as I do—as I did you. Merlin…he’d have to have been blind to miss that, but I swear, if I’d known that he was capable…”

Guinevere snorted, looking away at the window. “Damn it, Arthur—if you’d known, you would’ve helped. Don’t tell me you would’ve turned his offer down.”

“I would have.” Black spots were starting to blot out parts of Arthur’s vision; he couldn’t see Lancelot’s right shoulder or distinguish the color of Guinevere’s eyes. In an attempt to hold the dark at bay, he slashed his tongue again over his teeth. More blood sloshed around his mouth, and a bit fell out his numbed lips before he could swallow it all. “What he did was wrong, and before you ask, I don’t speak because of my—because of the Christian doctrine. He had no _right_ to do what he—what I think he was trying to do. To decide what he did for Lancelot.”

At that, the other man whipped around and grabbed Arthur’s arm. “And how exactly were you going to ask me?”

“How could you possibly doubt that he’d want to come back?” Guinevere added, voice bitter and sharp with knowledge. She’d survived too long on the edge to retreat from facts into a pretty illusion, and it was visibly costing her.

The double attack took Arthur aback, shattering the arguments he had constructed, and he spent a long moment trying to pull the shards back together before he finally gave up. His mouth, however, soldiered on. “I wouldn’t have asked you. You wanted—you said you wanted to be free. And if you’d come back, you never would have been.”

“Now who’s dictating to whom?” Lancelot snapped. He shuffled closer and took Arthur’s hands in his own. A tiny hiss of pain escaped him, but despite that and Arthur’s half-hearted attempt to back away, Lancelot refused to let go. “I would have gladly come back.”

“For me,” Arthur said. The words were like iron pellets on his tongue and he had to force them out. “Just as you saved Guinevere for me. I had the story from her.”

She had shifted from chair back to bedside, and was now crawling up to Arthur’s other side. “I said no such thing, and I never asked it of him.”

“You didn’t have to,” he told her, avoiding Lancelot’s denying expression. “I was enough to ensure that. It’s not just for one man to be able to demand so much from another, and never even…”

A sharp twist of Arthur’s finger brought his speech to a stop and sent his gaze on a dizzying ricochet back to Lancelot, who was in a towering fury.

“Arthur, for once would you shut up and not take my own choices on yourself? I would do anything for you, but that doesn’t make me a damned soft eunuch with no spine. I do as I will, and if my will happens to be accompanying your idiocy, then so be it. Whatever consequences Merlin has brought on our heads, I’ll deal with them myself.” Lancelot gouged his fingertips deep into the feet of Arthur’s wrists, grinding bones and tendons together. Strangely enough, the effect was not to rouse Arthur with the pain, but rather to speed his slide into a dreamy, hallucinogenic state.

As his tongue was already cut twice, he tried sinking his teeth into the side of his mouth, but he could barely feel when the blood came out, much less any resultant pain. There was only the faint sensation of something warm trickling from his sticky lips, and the swift transition to shock on both Lancelot and Guinevere. He felt himself being pushed back against the bed, dimly noting the jostling as the other two fought to be nearest. Lancelot won, and a second later his breath was steaming Arthur’s nose wide-open, leaving it vulnerable to staining by scents of peat and leather and blood edged with metal. “Arthur? Arthur? Fuck—Guinevere, you bitch, what did Merlin do? What price did he pay for—and who did he use to pay it with? Arthur, please, say something.”

Arthur did try. But they were so close a sheet of parchment wouldn’t have been able to slide between them, and Lancelot was incredibly, miraculously _alive_ \--and there was blood between them. Blood that Arthur could taste when he pressed into that chance graze of lips and helplessly took what he’d managed to so long resist, that burned down his throat like molten gold, that sank shining hooks into him and dragged him away into the cold.

* * *

The knights were already wound up because of Arthur’s steadily deteriorating condition, and the fact that Lancelot hadn’t yet wiped his mouth of Arthur’s blood didn’t help. Guinevere made herself face the battle ahead instead of uselessly trying to will Arthur awake with her eyes.

“You…I know you were dead, because I helped put the burial clothes on you myself.” Galahad limply fell into the nearest chair, eyes frozen wide as hens’ eggs. He was doing slightly better than Gawain or Bors, who merely stared from where they stood, half-through the doorway. “You were _dead_.”

Shrugging, Lancelot spread his hands. At least he’d dressed his lower half, Guinevere thought to herself. One less distraction—and she immediately hated the very pragmatism that had kept her afloat during the long damp underworld in Marius’ prison.

“I was. Now I’m not.” Aggravating man. It was a wonder his own comrades hadn’t killed him. “As far as we can tell, it’s Merlin’s fault.”

“So those rumors of him being a dark sorcerer were true.” Gawain’s statement wasn’t really an indication of recovery from shock more than a futile grasp at rationality.

Bors grunted, his eyes restlessly sweeping the room as if searching for a distraction. He saw Arthur’s wan profile, and Guinevere could tell the exact second he connected the red flecks on Arthur’s lips with the ones on Lancelot’s. “What the fuck happened? Is this why he’d been getting worse and worse?”

“I don’t know—oh, this?” Again with that unnatural calm, Lancelot smeared the back of his hand over his mouth, then held it out. He turned his wrist from side-to-side as if to get a better view. “Guinevere says that Merlin’s spitting up blood. We thought Arthur was doing the same, but this is only from him biting his tongue. And…and him deciding to kiss me while he passed out.”

Guinevere hissed, but too late to cover up Lancelot’s words. His face was hard and cold, and its expression most reminded her of a Woad traitor as he’d gone off to his execution. Merlin had gutted the man and strung his guts around a tree trunk, then left him there, still alive. A few hours Guinevere had gone back, sure that he was dead, but instead she had found a face still lit with stubborn life and still set in the same resolute lines.

She’d never dared to find out when he had died.

“Fuck.” Galahad seemed to slump even farther in his seat. Beside him, Gawain looked as if he wanted to do the same, only there were no available chairs.

Face smoothing to blankness, Bors simply turned on his heel and left.

“I think that’s just too many surprises at once,” Gawain muttered, glancing after him. “It’s not like he’s never come across it before.”

“What, men liking men or the dead reviving?” Lancelot snapped. He was twisting his fingers in the blankets so tightly that his knuckles were glaring white. Guinevere took a closer look at him, and then she saw the many hairline cracks that were arising in his façade.

Before the stung Gawain could give voice to his irked response, Guinevere stepped forward and raised a hand. She wasn’t doing it to preserve Lancelot’s so far unhelpful second life, but because she needed all the organized support she could gather, given that Arthur was down for an indeterminate amount of time. After all, that had been why she’d called for the knights and not her servants, though the latter’s loyalty was far less questionable. The knights were trained warriors as the Britons were not, and if she wanted to prevent chaos in Arthur’s absence, she’d need them.

If she wanted to keep Arthur alive, she’d need them. As much as it grated for her to admit, right now they could anchor him to life better than she could.

“Stop this. You’re not helping him at all.” When Lancelot leaned back and rolled his eyes, Guinevere rounded on him. “You bastard—do you want him to die, or do you want to find out what’s going on? Be as selfish as you just swore you are, but leave him out of it.”

Startled, he straightened up and snarled at her. His hand snaked behind to cover Arthur’s. “What would you care about _Arthur_ , woman? I thought you belonged to Britain.”

For a moment, Guinevere wished she could snap his neck, throw his body out the window and curl up beside Arthur for the rest of her days. The man was so infuriating in ways that jabbed deeply enough for her to feel the barbed truth behind them. “I care about what he did for me on Marius’ farm and what he won for me on the battlefield and what he’s trying to do for me now. If you don’t believe anything else about me, then at least believe that I wish him no more harm than you do.”

“This isn’t helping either.” Fairly twitching with nerves, Galahad swung himself out of his chair and started to pace, stride jouncing with his pent-up frustration. “Look—what happened, who did what, and now what has to be done? That’s all I want to know any more.”

Blinking, Gawain and Lancelot both cast looks of surprise on their fellow knight. Apparently, such perspicacity was unusual behavior for him.

Guinevere couldn’t bring herself to care. He was speaking sense, and that was enough for her. “Arthur was driving himself to death, and no one wanted that to happen. I think—I said some things—and Merlin somehow brought Lancelot back to life because he thought it would steady Arthur. Only things aren’t going right.”

“And how did Merlin do this?” When he received more startled glances, Galahad turned fully about to face the other men. He slashed his hand through the air, but a wince cut his gesture short and he gathered his arm back to him. “What? If it’s so bad that I have to be the one with the working brain, then maybe you’ve got better things to do than stare at me. Arthur’s dying, and—and I cannot take any more deaths. I can’t. I’ll kill someone if I have to.”

For a long, quivering moment, they stood still in their tableau of agonizing limbo. And then Gawain slumped against the wall, one hand going up to uselessly try to stifle his laughter, which was liberally laced with hysteria. “Galahad, thank you. Thank you for never, ever changing.”

“And thank you for having a cool head.” Guinevere ignored the frenzy-tinged snickers from Lancelot and forged on. “No one knows exactly how Merlin did it; Arthur surprised him at the tail-end of the ritual and then fainted. Merlin came and got me and a servant of mine, and we helped get Arthur and Lancelot here before anyone else saw. Ever since, Merlin’s been outside, refusing to speak to anyone.”

“Well, someone had better make him,” Lancelot said, looking straight at Guinevere. The boldness of his gaze raised her hackles, but he did have the right of it. She was the best candidate for that task.

On the other hand, he certainly wasn’t off the hook. “And someone’s got to get Bors before he accidentally tells anyone, and someone has to wake up Arthur and get food into him. He hasn’t been eating…”

Lancelot growled, but at Arthur. “Stupid Christian,” he muttered, rubbing a thumb over the inside of Arthur’s wrist. Then he blinked. “He’s not so fevered anymore.”

Frowning, Guinevere came forward and ran two fingers over Arthur’s brow. She instantly regretted it, as it felt like pressing her skin against red-hot iron. “Not to me. And he looks worse.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Go loosen Merlin’s tongue!” Without waiting for a reply, Lancelot turned his back on her and leaned over Arthur, murmuring something in a language that was neither Latin nor Briton.

It was in the tips of her fingers and the edges of her teeth to wrap a portion of her long sleeves around his neck and be done with the bastard, but Guinevere barely held herself in. Arthur needed—the thought clogged her mouth with foulness—Arthur did need Lancelot.

A palm lightly fell on her shoulder, and she pivoted to find Gawain’s oddly sympathetic eyes. He silently but irresistibly drew her out of the room, with Galahad following them a moment later. “You never did get to know Lancelot, did you?”

“In the short time that we’ve known each other, I never really wanted to.” Not like he meant. There had been a kind of attractive force in their rivalry, but it had been dark and clawing and most importantly, more shadow than substance. Now, she could barely remember how even that ephemeral feeling had been possible. Her sense of near victory, she supposed—Lancelot had been about to leave Arthur, one way or another. That was no longer the case. “You’re being reasonable about this.”

Gawain and Galahad exchanged something wordless with their looks, then turned back to her. “We’ve got stories about this kind of thing, so it’s not…anyway, if we didn’t learn to adjust, we would’ve been dead long since at the hands of your people.”

“Not to mention that Lancelot’s being a prick,” Galahad muttered. “I would’ve been suspicious if he’d been nice and happy. Why? Are you Woads going to have a problem with this?”

“Not if it’s handled right. Which of you is going after Bors?” Strands of Guinevere’s hair had worked free of her coiffure and were now tickling her nose, but she kept her hands down at her sides. If she gave in once, then she would never regain control of things.

Another silent communication, and then Galahad gave her a short nod before spinning on his heel and walking off. Gawain fiddled with one of his bandages and glanced the opposite way. “Merlin?”

As that confused her, Guinevere stood still and didn’t answer.

“No offense, lady, but after what’s happened we want to know firsthand what’s going on. Besides, you may have to be polite to Merlin because of whatever ties you two have, but _I_ don’t.” It was the smile that closed the debate, because it was dark and skirting vicious and surprisingly at home on Gawain’s open face. Arthur’s first, warriors second, and then everything else. An arrangement that seemed to hold true in one way or another for all the knights.

Guinevere allowed her resignation to take over and let him come with her.

* * *

Bors ended up sitting with Tristan’s fresh grave to his back and Dagonet’s before him, the gently-curving mound of dirt already dotted with a few sprouts. Dagonet would’ve liked that; he had a strange enjoyment of little things that he kept secret from most. To Bors’ shame, he had laughed once at it, but Dagonet had forgiven him.

“I’m sorry.” He patted the dirt, careful not to dislodge any of the tiny tender green shoots. “I’m sorry about how things turned out. And I wish it hadn’t been like that—shit, you’re laughing now. Or doing that little half-smile, aren’t you? You always went your own way, and didn’t give a shit about what everyone else thought.”

The wind whistled in his ears, bringing the sound of slow footsteps and soft cursing. Galahad never could stop complaining, even if it was over a simple stone beneath his foot.

“I wish it hadn’t, but…you always would’ve done it, wouldn’t you? Even saved once, it wouldn’t have taken you long to try again. But it’s not the same with you, Dagonet. You were always content.”

“Bors?” Galahad called.

“Deeds are done and can’t be undone. Not like that. You’ve just…got a new mess to get through.” Bors gave the grave one last lingering sweep of his palm, drawing strength from the grainy unevenness of honest dirt beneath his skin. “Rest easy, because I’ve a feeling we aren’t. Oh—right. I’m marrying her. And naming the kids. You want one to carry your banner?”

Boots stopped just short of Bors’ left leg. “Are you sure you haven’t taken too many knocks to the head?”

“You sure you want another one to add to your tally?” As he rose, Bors grudgingly observed that not all the aches and twinges were from the battle three days ago. He was getting old, and his life was the comfortable smolder of middle age. Time to settle down and leave the world to the ones that still burned high and fast.

“So…” Galahad shuffled his feet a bit, still showing traces of the nervous, snappish twelve-year-old. “Do I need to talk to you?”

Bor looked up and saw the worry in the other man’s face, then emphatically shook his head. “If it’s about you thinking I’ll go against Arthur or Lancelot, then you’re an idiot. I’ve followed them too long to stop now.”

Nodding, Galahad seemed to accept that, though his face remained troubled. He slowly pivoted to gaze upon Tristan’s grave, and then he glanced up, as if sensing something. High up in the ice-purple dawn, a tiny dot was lazily circling.

“He didn’t have to fight that Saxon. There were plenty others to choose,” Bors finally said.

One of Galahad’s shoulders lifted, held itself there for a moment, and then fell. “I know. And I don’t know what’d been running through his head, but—it’s just—why any of us? Why do we put up with this?”

“Because _this_ , boy, is what we do. We wouldn’t be knights if we didn’t have to deal with it.” Bors grimaced. “Though this time’s definitely odder than all the other ones.”

The other man stayed silent for a few more breaths, then broke into quiet laughter that bordered on sobs. He hunched his shoulders and ducked his head, struggling to keep the noise down. Aside from laying a hand on Galahad’s shoulder, Bors let him deal with himself. He was a man, after all.

Soon enough, Galahad calmed enough to look steadily if not clearly on Tristan’s grave. “And I was supposed to give you the speech. Oh—no talking about this. Guinevere’s…nervous. Don’t trust her much, but she’s still better than Merlin.”

“About that. What happened?” Bors asked.

Galahad sighed and threw one last glance at the spiraling hawk. “I’ll tell you on the way back. Come on. We’ve got to get Lancelot’s things back to him. I’ve a feeling he’ll be needing his swords at least.”

* * *

Merlin knew they were coming before they had even stepped out of Arthur’s room. When the knight and the queen finally crested his hill, it was like waking into a dream of the past.

Guinevere had gained and lost a great deal in the few but vastly eventful hours since their last meeting, and from her gaze he could see that they both knew she would gain and lose far more, no matter how things turned out.

Well, he’d tried his best to ensure the survival of his legacy and the consequences were etching away his insides, throwing up the occasional red trickle to stain the grass. If he tried, he could possibly make year’s end—he still had enough strength for that. But given the new knowledge that weighed down the old, he now doubted the wisdom of that.

Age, he thought, was creaking joints and slowing reflexes and over-reaching. Experience was knowing when to give in to age.

“We need to speak,” Guinevere at last said. Her tone was not that of before: girl to man, student to teacher, friend to friend. She spoke as a ruler to a subject, demanding all without deigning to even pretend to a possible return. As was her right, and it both warmed and cooled Merlin’s heart to see how swiftly she assumed it.

Behind her, the knight Gawain relaxed into a easy stance that proved better than any words his determination to stay and hear everything. Merlin could choose to speak in one of the more obscure Briton tongues and thus pass the burden of that decision to Guinevere. He could have, but a small spark of untainted affection for his best still danced in his breast, and it was enough. It was a shame that Arthur never would realize just how similar he and Merlin were.

“Speak,” Merlin replied. In Latin.

She didn’t mince words. “What did you do?”

“I helped raise the dead. That was clear enough.” Another cough rumbled in Merlin’s gut, but for the moment he forced it to wait. “Listen, queen, and listen well. All I did was _help_ ; I had planned to go further, but that wasn’t necessary. Or wanted.”

Lines of confusion grooved in between the ones of frustration on Guinevere’s face. She took a step forward and bent over Merlin, air hissing between clenched teeth. “Do not play with me.”

“If I were, I would be enjoying this far more. You’ve grown, girl, but not as much as you believe.” The knots in Merlin’s lungs wrenched themselves tight, and this time he had to cough even though he knew the act wouldn’t relieve any of the awful tension beneath his ribs. Dull dark red stuff splattered his hand, which he used to draw script over the grass before him. “I tried to do what was necessary to keep Arthur here, and something else had a hand in it as well. And it didn’t belong to Britain.”

Gawain folded his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels, thus managing to convey the impression of looming despite his lower position on the hill. He flicked a finger at the figures on the ground. “What’s that?”

“You would know better than I would.” Merlin closed his eyes and sent himself back to the dark room with the fire-shadows on the wall and the red-eyed king. He forced past the memory of Arthur’s eyes and looked at the shapes flitting behind him, curling into the dark crevices but always stretching out for the men. Before they vanished, he had copied another three down.

“We don’t have time for your mysticism,” Guinevere replied, voice cracking through his concentration. When he opened his eyes, he found a surprising brittleness in her hard eyes that persuaded him to swallow his sharp retort. Inexperienced or not, she was just as essential as Arthur was. “I don’t doubt your visions or your wisdom, but right now I’m concerned with Arthur, and he isn’t encompassed by those. I need something solid to work with.”

While she was speaking, Gawain covertly edged near and squatted down to study the symbols Merlin was tracing out. His jaw muscle ticked, and several times he seemed about to speak, but he always caught himself before a syllable ever fell from his lips.

“What consequences will we have to face? What’s the drawback to this—” slight pause “—gift that you’ve bestowed upon Arthur. And why has his health taken such a turn for the worse, if you’ve only been working to strengthen it?” Once she was done, Guinevere shut her mouth so quickly that her teeth clicked together. Her voice had been calm and rational enough, but the uncertainty singing trembles through her body had only increased in its violence.

The last symbol was missing something, but no matter how Merlin strained his memory, he couldn’t recall what. Suddenly angry with himself, he pushed himself up and started to smear away the script.

A hand caught his wrist and unceremoniously shoved him back. Gawain gave him a brief, dismissive glance that sorely tested Merlin’s patience against his pride, then reached out and added the lacking stroke. “That one I know,” he muttered.

“What?” It was a sign of Guinevere’s nerves that when her attention shifted, it did so not as a smooth glide but as a jerk that nearly overbalanced her with its strength.

The knight didn’t even look at her. “Wait a moment. I’m not done memorizing them yet. Merlin—where did you see these?”

“In the room that held Lancelot, when he had just begun to revive. You know them?” Merlin leaned forward, his rage melting to eager curiosity. Strange that he could still find the strength for interest.

Then again, perhaps not. He had always assumed that he knew who—what—would kill him, and it was more irritating than he could’ve predicted to discover that that was not so.

Gawain pressed two knuckles to his lips, thinking. “Not all of them. And you’ve got them jumbled up…hmm?” He finally saw Guinevere’s mounting aggravation. “They’re signs used by some of the Sarmatian tribes. These are from family trees…well, those six are, anyway. The way you’ve got them written out, I can’t really…”

“Whose family tree?” Guinevere dropped down into a warrior’s crouch, uncaring of how inappropriate the pose was when put together with her filmy skirts.

“I don’t know. My tribe didn’t use many, and it was Tristan who knew them the best.” When Gawain mentioned his dead comrade, his gaze inevitably darkened as it turned toward Merlin.

The young always thought the impossible possible, and it was left to the old to know the pain of accomplishment. Merlin sat back and suffered yet another fit of coughing, then wiped his mouth clean. “Arthur is indeed why I sought to retrieve Lancelot’s spirit, but there are more reasons than that for why the attempt succeeded. I don’t think they hold true for every fallen knight.”

“You think it’s got to do with the Sarmatian blood. And certain family lines.” Gawain let out an unexpected laugh, which was sardonic but weary. “How long have you had your eyes on us, old man?”

Merlin didn’t bother to reply to a sally that obviously didn’t want an answer.

“Yes, we’ve got some strange things back in our homeland. Magic even, some say. But we’re not in Sarmatia. This is _your_ land.” With his boot, Gawain scuffed out the script and stood up, offering an arm to Guinevere. “We’ll get no more from him, I think.”

“Sadly, I agree with you.” She favored Merlin with one last glance, the coldness of which did away with the last of their former trust. Perhaps magic was passing odd, but Merlin had to say that the most unknowable thing he’d ever come across was the working of a human heart, which could cleave to for the whole span of life or leap to something new and be one with in within the blink of an eye.

But he was romanticizing again, seeing smoothness where he had moments before cut himself on the rocks. A habit of age that sometimes annoyed and sometimes comforted Merlin.

“My land or yours, some things surpass borders,” he called after them. Both startled, but when Gawain tried to go on, Guinevere made him wait. “And I am not the only dark sorcerer here.”

They shook themselves free of him and walked on, leaving Merlin alone with his staff and his racking coughs and his memories. He spat red on the grass and hunched over the small shining drops, watching and recollecting and waiting while his limbs grew cold. The trees were calling him to them, offering that unfailing comfort, but he tarried a little longer because he wished to see the end of his dreams.

* * *

“You are, without a doubt, the stupidest man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.” Galahad and Bors had come by a few minutes before, but one look from Lancelot and they had simply dropped off his few belongings and some food, which had probably congealed now. Lancelot could’ve used the nourishment, but part of him feared that the moment he turned away, the faint pulse between his fingertips would fail.

In fifteen years of fighting, after countless injuries of varying severity and the occasional disease—damned pestilential land, Britain was—he couldn’t ever remember seeing Arthur so close to death. He was too pale, and he felt a little too weak to even do a cursory inspection of his weapons’ conditions, but that was nothing compared to the chill of Arthur’s bloodless skin. The other man hadn’t moved, either—not in the thrashing of fever and not even in the moans of pain. His lips did occasionally twitch, but never in a way that diminished the anxiety clutching at Lancelot.

The bastard, Lancelot thought with sudden heat. The stupid bastard that never could leave him in any kind of peace. “Arthur, this is ridiculous. I die and you live, then I live and you die? Might as well go back to what we had before, because it is _not_ an even trade. Do you hear me? You’d better, you son of a raddled whore. You never listened before, and damn it, I am not going to be trapped in repetition.”

After at least a steady half-hour of chafing, Arthur’s palm lay as white and cold as before in between Lancelot’s. Battlefields had rendered Lancelot numb to the ruined and wrecked and mauled, but the sight of this…absolute stillness dried out his mouth and choked his throat. The corners of his eyes were beginning to burn.

“I wasn’t saving her, you fool. I was saving you,” he muttered, bowing his head. In that position, he had an excellent view of how his hands resembled that of a devout Christian in prayer. He must look like a penitent. “And I am, in a way. I couldn’t give you what you needed, and so you had to go to her. Failure cuts in both directions, you guilt-loving jackass.”

Arthur’s breath abruptly hitched into audibility. Lancelot froze, eyes fixed to the other man’s face. When nothing else happened, he tried and failed to swallow the disappointment that had hardened into sharp rock in his throat.

“Why did you kiss me?” The question should actually have been _why now, you selfish blind idiot_ , but Lancelot had never liked the way depression slowed and dulled things. He preferred anger, if only because then he knew he was feeling something. “I tried for so long—and I ended up thinking you just didn’t look at men that way. But you—you—Arthur, for such an honorable man, you’re a remarkable liar.”

Lancelot’s vision narrowed to the hand he was squeezing, making it flush up with blood till the fingertips seemed about to burst like so many blisters. He ran his tongue over his lips, but only tasted his own blood, oozing from his cracking lips. Cold and parched and drafty, the room was, and it sank down into his marrow. He shivered and laid down, curling around Arthur’s arm so the blankets would suffice for both of them.

“You were always wondering who you were…and you wondered why I never had any patience with that. Constantly telling us that our deeds determined our legacy, and then never listening to even yourself.” And perhaps Arthur had been right in saying that Lancelot would never be free, but if that was so, then they were self-imposed bonds Lancelot had. He wondered what Arthur’s philosophers would make of that: was free will truly possible? Everyone had their allegiances and loves that decided their actions; the only people who didn’t were the coldblooded solitary ones on high, who did solely as they willed without a care to anyone. Judging from the few examples of that lifestyle that Lancelot had met, it wasn’t a path to be envied.

“I always forgot to ask whether or not you ever thought of your own freedom,” he murmured to the webbing between Arthur’s thumb and index finger. “Because I swear, of us all you were the one with the heaviest chains.”

If Lancelot closed his eyes and pressed his cheek to the hand he held, he could pretend that the warmth he felt was actually radiating out of Arthur, and not his own body heat being pushed back at him. He could even imagine for a little while that the other man’s thready pulse was speeding up to match his own.

“You really shouldn’t do this to me. Too much like reviving—and no, I don’t remember what went on in between. That kind of thing doesn’t interest me. Never has. Damn it, you _bastard_. You can’t leave me. Everything’s a mess and you’re the only reason that it hasn’t yet made me lose my mind. If you need to follow that God of yours, then I need to follow you.”

It had been deathly ice one moment, and searing heat the next. He’d revived into a fall, and found himself with Arthur as his first sight. If that was an omen—well, Lancelot didn’t believe in those, either. Besides, he already knew the answers to those questions.

He had a second life. With Arthur, in Britain, and without Rome—and no matter what Guinevere did, she’d never be anything like the Empire. Truthfully, Lancelot wasn’t entirely happy with all of that, but he wasn’t going to dwell on it. Nor was he going to let Arthur offer up hope like that and then snatch it away, because that was even crueler and more hurtful than dying. And he did remember what that was like.

He uncoiled just enough to put his mouth to Arthur’s ear, and then he concentrated with every particle of himself. “Arthur. Wake up.”

And he waited.

Nothing.

Lancelot buried his face in the pillow and bit down on the cloth because the tears stung so much.

* * *

Arthur was drifting in a land he didn’t quite not-know, wandering among and even _through_ people he shouldn’t have known but somehow recognized, albeit not in ways that allowed him to bring up names or relationships. He wasn’t supposed to be there.

These were proud men and haughty women, strong and wild and windswept beautiful like the spare, magnificent landscape that framed them. They rode horses the like of which had never been seen on earth, and the gleam of their arms somehow blinded him.

Somehow. Somehow. Because that shouldn’t happen, though why it shouldn’t just escaped Arthur. Despite the mounting sense of urgency that gnawed at him, he forced himself to stay calm and study the situation. He was a soldier, and he hadn’t survived that for so long out of sheer luck.

The long stream of riders snaked from horizon to horizon, and its course varied as widely as that of the islands in a delta mouth. Sometimes they rode to his right, sometimes to his left, and sometimes they seemed to tramp right through him, as if he were a—

\--that was it. He wasn’t dead, and as this couldn’t possibly happen in reality, he must be dreaming. He was in a dream.

As soon as that thought entered Arthur’s head, one horseman peeled off from the rest and halted just short of Arthur. A rough-hewn face of uncommon handsomeness glowered down on him, apparently hostile. However, a closer look discerned an odd softness in those flinty eyes, as if the man was only playing. Or uncertain himself of his welcome. There was also something strangely familiar about the shape of his nose, the line of his jaw, and the way he set his shoulders, reluctantly but firmly bent to whatever task he chose.

A chill wave suddenly went through Arthur and resolved into a misty figure running before—that had just run through him. It was a woman, and as she turned to lift her arms to the horseman, Arthur could see that she was exceptionally beautiful.

Then she was seated on the horse, facing Arthur, and his heartbeat stuttered. “Mother?”

She smiled. Strangely so, because it was without the hint of sorrow that he remembered. The rider behind her looped a possessive arm about her waist and grinned, bold and feral, over her shoulder.

“Father.” Arthur stared even harder now, trying to memorize every line of the face that had previously been nothing more than a gray blob. “And this is Sarmatia?”

But as he spoke, the land around him was changing, bare blue-grey rock flowing into lush green grass. The other riders disappeared into a vast sky that mocked the feeble ants that crawled beneath it with its effortless dominance, while Uther merely continued to smile. He raised his arm to point at the sky, and when Arthur looked there was a fiery comet falling from zenith to horizon.

It sucked him up and bundled him in lightning flashes of heat that shocked his teeth into chattering while his flesh vaporized off the bone, while he was reduced in an instant to mere hurtling spirit, watching as the ground came nearer and nearer and—

\--collision was not painful. Dreaming, Arthur reminded himself. He could actually see himself fragmenting into a thousand bits, but it wasn’t real, he wasn’t falling into ashes, and he certainly wasn’t burning…burning…

_Arthur. Wake up._

Odd symbols spread themselves across the world, tangling in the—branches? He’d fallen into a forest, and one that he recognized as well. Britain. The land that had first nibbled, then ravaged him, and then the land that had called to him, louder than any other. His blood was in its soil—his own blood, and not simply that of his ancestors. And blood would tell.

He’d chosen. There’d been an offer and an acceptance, and he’d walked open-eyed into both. When a decision was made in such a manner, then it was ridiculous to resent it. If Lancelot offered to go with him—

Arthur stopped, struck by that, but the flames didn’t and he kept burning right up until the moment his harsh gasp snapped open his eyes.

“Arthur?” Lancelot was there, wet smears on his cheeks a contrast to the brightness of his blood-shot eyes. His hands were fluttering over Arthur’s neck and face, scorching with every hesitant touch. “You woke..”

Another breath, and the heat only licked higher. He sat up and buried his face in Lancelot’s neck, ran his palms over the other man’s bare chest, shoved as much of himself as he could against lean cool muscles, all in an attempt to find some relief from the feverish melting inside. It didn’t work, but the softness and the sudden quivering beneath his hands ignited an even more devastating hunger in Arthur. He mindlessly rolled them over and down, rubbing his cheek up and down Lancelot, feeling the warmth roll off him and plant itself in Lancelot’s twisting body. Fruit was soon borne in the form of sweat, light salty sheen springing up all over, and Arthur found himself licking trails of it from collarbones to jaw, pressing his tongue deep into throat hollows that were furiously working around desperate moans. He swirled his way after one particularly fast droplet and thus went from shoulder to breastbone in a single breath. Danced about the ripple of ribs heaving up into his teeth, then traced that bead of sweat down firm stomach to finally trap it against leather. Waistband. A surprisingly difficult word to remember.

Fingers did their best to drag Arthur’s hair from his scalp. “Wait—fuck, I didn’t just say that—no, I did and I mean it, so wait…”

The heat was settling down to warmth, or perhaps Arthur was simply growing more accustomed to its intensity. Either way, it was now a pleasant sensation to mouth his way up Lancelot’s increasingly restless body. He tasted bitter herbs, earth and cinders, but under that was a growing spiciness that tantalized his tongue, even luring him into a few bites in order to get more of it. He was—starving. Starving, and this was filling him but too, too slowly.

“Arthur—Arthur—damn it, stop. Wait. You’re feverish again…wait, don’t _do_ tha…ah.” The voice above Arthur soared into a broken whine when he latched onto one nipple and sucked it till it hardened against his teeth. Feverish? From the feel of things, it was Lancelot that was growing hotter by the moment. His shivers were searing Arthur’s tongue, and it was bone-melting and delicious and so _familiar_. Even though Arthur knew very well that he’d never, ever been here before.

That had been on purpose, for reasons that he could now barely recall, though at the time, they’d seemed the most serious and damning thoughts he’d ever had to face. He’d shed tears before he’d made that decision, he remembered, and he’d felt himself dying a little every time he’d had to enforce it.

“ _Arthur_. Stop.” Stubbornly perverse as always, Lancelot shoved Arthur back and put up an arm to hold the space. “ _Think_ , would you—”

Wristbones rounded wonderfully in Arthur’s mouth, and there he discovered a streak of sweetness that spiraled around each of Lancelot’s fingers.

Lancelot gritted his teeth and made a fist. His cheeks were flushed past the cheekbones, his hair was a wild mess of wet curls, and he couldn’t speak without gasps interrupting every other word. But he wasn’t going to give in yet. “Honestly…the one time I actually want you to think…”

“I’m trying.” And Arthur was, because he could see Lancelot asking for it, but the heat slipping about between his skin and the rest of his flesh was insistent. His rationality tottered and crumbled as fast as he could fit the pieces together, while those odd symbols blanketed his mind in a haze of sensation and meandering intuition that made only half-logic. “I’m—I did something and I don’t know how. I saw Merlin over your body, and I—I guessed what he was doing and I wanted it, but I didn’t want to hurt you…”

“You’re rambling. And you’re burning up again.” Raising his hand to feel Arthur’s forehead was a grave mistake on Lancelot’s part.

Arthur felt the other man still, saw Lancelot’s pupils shrink and then widen as if to swallow the rest of the eyes, and tasted the air change between them. “You’re doing something.”

“Am I?” Lancelot dropped his hand and pushed himself up on his elbows to violently smash their mouths together. This time, Arthur tasted blood from the source.

He barely noticed, saturated as he was with the frenzied tumbling that caught both of them up. Knees locked around his thigh and a hard cock pressed up against his own, but—leather. Irritating. Arthur reached down to get rid of it, and nearly blistered his palms in the process on the scorching silk that was the small of Lancelot’s back. He trapped the other man’s lower lip between his teeth and worried at it till Lancelot fell back, groaning, and allowed Arthur to fully strip him.

And then it was an incoherent mess of nails ripping along an old back scar, of Arthur’s teeth bruising a too-white shoulder dark purple and his fingers chewing into flexing hips, of the rough hard grind that struck off clouds of sparks to glitter in his blackening vision.

Bite on his neck. Desperation. “No! Damn it, if you pass out again—don’t put me through that—”

Arthur blinked and dragged color back to him. Black hair massing into the grey-brown furs, crisp shadow to the soft dull blankets. The wine-dark inside of a slack-open mouth. Silvering of sweat over eyelids squeezing shut at the last moment, and then the faint flicker of the world as everything settled down.

His mind was clearing as that happened, and he could think better than he had been able to in—weeks, really. Since they’d gotten news of Germanius’ arrival and Lancelot had first spoken of Sarmatia not in tones of longing, but in tones of anticipation.

Sarmatia. Oh, God. “I’m so sorry,” Arthur whispered, letting his head droop to rest on the other man’s shoulder.

Lancelot didn’t have to open his eyes for Arthur to know that he was rolling them. “Now what?”

“You can’t leave me now. And I can’t leave Britain.” The euphoria—and damn it for the worst evil—was ebbing away, quick as the frost withering the earth. Arthur selfishly locked his fingers around Lancelot’s wrists and cursed himself in every way that he knew how.

The other man still didn’t understand, because he simply wriggled down and pecked at the corner of Arthur’s mouth. “And that’s something I didn’t want?”

“No, you _can’t leave_. Not as long as I’m alive. Think about it. Really think about it. Imagine yourself getting on a ship without me.” Then Arthur braced himself.

For good reason. The shock of the ice that flooded through him nearly stopped his heart, and from the looks of things, Lancelot was feeling far worse. With a whimper that lashed at Arthur worse than any scourge, the other man grabbed for him and spent a long moment just breathing against Arthur’s neck.

Finally, Lancelot asked, “You or Merlin?”

And Arthur had to reply with the truth. “I don’t know.”

* * *

Guinevere and Gawain would have returned sooner if they hadn’t been waylaid by a group of concerned elders. Already the eastern tribal leaders wanted to go back to the old factional ways, and the elders wanted Arthur to immediately meet with them in order to awe them into continuing loyalty. The Saxons were gone, but no one fooled themselves in thinking that there weren’t more still waiting in Germania for the right tides and winds.

It took far too long to persuade the elders to settle for other measures and to wait for Arthur to recover a little more from Badon Hill. By the time Guinevere finally saw them off, her senses were itching with premonition. Gawain looked uneasy as well, and kept glancing at the windows to Arthur’s rooms.

“So you were saying there are two legends of immortality among your people,” Guinevere said as they resumed walking.

“More than that, but only two important ones. And they’re the only ones where…” Reluctance dogged Gawain’s every word, but he eventually satisfied her pleading look. “Where I’ve proof that maybe they’re true. The first one says that when a great Sarmatian warrior dies, he sometimes comes back as a warhorse. And this I think I’ve seen, when I was still in Sarmatia.”

Lie or no lie, the situation was such that Guinevere at least needed to consider the possibility. And Gawain was one of the men to whom Arthur trusted his life, and so far he hadn’t broken that trust. “Well…I don’t think we’re dealing with that. What about the other?”

“The other one I heard from Tristan and from…from a few knights that are long dead. But they came from south—told me about great oceans of sand, too. They say that there’s a bird that lives for a thousand years, and then it makes itself a nest. Fancy thing with jewels and spices.” A grin came and went on Gawain’s face, and Guinevere deeply appreciated it. “Anyway, it burns itself, and a new bird rises from the ashes.”

“But this is a bird, not a man.” Still, Guinevere surreptitiously glanced at her hand and remembered the scorch of Arthur’s skin.

Gawain shrugged, though his face was far from nonchalant. “I know. But some tribes burn their dead to free the souls for their next life. And you hear stories of sorcerers who can survive almost anything…”

“Lancelot wasn’t the one on fire,” Guinevere muttered. She was so busy counting the number of remaining steps that she almost missed the sharp look Gawain gave her.

A yard from the door, he took her by the arm and made them stop, cleverly positioning himself in such a way that she couldn’t shove past him and go in. She made a note of that; as kind as Gawain could obviously be, he still didn’t hold her in the same regard as he did Arthur, and so there was no point in dismissing his possible influence on the future.

“He wasn’t _the_ one,” Gawain repeated. “You know, we forgot to ask—did Merlin do anything to Arthur?”

“From the sound of things, it was Merlin who ended up having things done to him. Listen—I may not know Arthur or Lancelot like you do, but you don’t know Merlin as I do. And the man we spoke to was…he came up against something that wouldn’t yield, and he’s the worse for it.” Grief and regret at that, because after all, it’d been only days before that she and he were the closest of friends. They’d made an odd pairing, but Guinevere had never and still didn’t repent her choice to look to Merlin not only as fellow plotter but as fond acquaintance as well. It was a shame that fondness didn’t stand a chance against certain other emotions, but that was the way of it. One succeeded another…

A second thought leaped out and just missed hooking on the tail-end of the first. Frowning, Guinevere paused and tried to drag it back. Consequently, when the door slammed open, she nearly jumped into the opposite wall.

Fury-eyed, Lancelot glared at them. He was covered in bruises and other marks that left absolutely nothing up to interpretation, and his only covering was a sheet that had been hastily wrapped about his waist. “Well?”

Gawain blinked. “So…is Arthur awake?”

“Yes.” Lancelot clipped the word almost in half. Then he turned to face Guinevere, and she was stunned to see a broad streak of entreaty in the midst of his anger. “What did Merlin do to me?”

“He said something else interfered with what he was do—” Guinevere caught a glimpse a pale, swaying form behind him and forced her way into the room just in time to see Arthur stagger into another collapse. She rushed over and dropped to her knees beside him. “Help me get him up!”

Gawain instantly came over, but oddly enough, Lancelot hung back. “You said Merlin didn’t finish what he was doing?”

“Oh, does it matter right now? Do you want Arthur to live or die—damn it, you were supposed to get him to eat, not…” The words that rose to tongue were livid and snarling, and weren’t useful at all to Arthur, who hadn’t fainted this time but looked as if he desperately wanted to. His eyes were fixed on Lancelot, and they were so…heavy with guilt that Guinevere wanted to retch. “Lancelot, you useless piece of horse-shit.”

“You have no idea what’s—”

Between the two of them, she and Gawain got Arthur back on the bed. She slapped her hand over Arthur’s weak mumbles and spun around to growl at Lancelot. “If living’s so awful, then go take your sword and go back to being dead. But don’t you _dare_ try to take Arthur with you. Whatever he did, you know damned well he wouldn’t have done it if you had truly not wanted it.”

“I want something because I can, and not because someone makes me!” Lancelot slammed the door shut and stomped back across the room. Along the way, he snatched up some food from the table. “And if I could choose now—”

Arthur suddenly ripped Guinevere’s hand off his mouth and forced himself up. The effort turned him an alarming gray, but he so strenuously resisted all attempts to quiet him that Guinevere and Gawain were forced to give up and simply watch.

“Lancelot. If you could choose now.” Every word was carefully pronounced, edges as sharp as the piercing sick gleam in Arthur’s eyes that was stabbing into a very still Lancelot.

The other man didn’t answer, but the conflicting emotions in his face were apparently enough for Arthur, who slumped back onto the bed so quickly that Guinevere thought he was losing consciousness. But when she lunged for him, he caught her hands and held them away from him. “No, don’t. I won’t pass out any more.”

“I need to go think. Or am I not allowed to leave the room?” It was impossible to tell whether the acid in Lancelot’s tone was directed at Arthur or at Guinevere.

“For what it’s worth, I think I did it because Merlin was trying to get control over you,” Arthur sighed, not looking at the other man. Lancelot stiffened, but didn’t otherwise react.

Guinevere closed her eyes. “Lancelot, if you’re not going to help keep Arthur alive, leave. No one’s using the chapel for anything, and I think I saw a good lock on the door.”

She could hear Lancelot opening his mouth to say something to that, but Gawain got off the bed and somehow got the man into clothes and out of the room. And then she and Arthur were alone.


	3. Sacrificial Fire

In lieu of speaking, Guinevere retrieved what food Lancelot had left behind and brought it over to the bed. When Arthur tried to wave it away, she grabbed his hand and forced it to close around a hunk of bread.

“I’m not in need,” he murmured, still looking toward the door.

“You might not be, but I am. I want to see you eat so I can be sure that you’ve decided to live.” Guinevere knew very well that that was by no means a foregone conclusion, but for the moment she chose to gloss over that difficulty. The brazen approach cost little and often yielded much.

Arthur finally looked at her as if seeing a person instead of a body, and the corners of his mouth twitched a little, like in the dying spasms of a laugh. He glanced at the bread, which had crumpled under the combined pressures of their fingers and now resembled a smashed mushroom.

Sighing, Guinevere replaced it with a new piece and a mug of watered wine. “Eat.”

He did, slowly and methodically: first he stripped the crust, and then he divided the bread into seven pieces of equal size. The first one he ate without hesitation, but when his fingers picked up the second his eyes darted toward the door again. Then he roughly shook himself and put the rest of the bread to his mouth, washing each down with a good-sized mouthful of the wine. “Thank you.”

“You’re always so polite.” A slightly underripe apple rested in the hollow of Guinevere’s palm. She rolled it a bit, studying the change in the tint of its skin and comparing it to the different hues spilled blood could take on. It wasn’t the metaphor of the bard, but then, she’d never had the time to do more than listen to those talents. Fighting was her milieu, and most of the time she was content with it. “Aren’t you ever tempted to stop?”

“You’ve seen me do so.” With an encouraging eagerness, Arthur reached for the apple and then the plate she had on her lap. Hunger was creeping into his eyes and pushing aside the black pall that had hung over them, and a little color was coming back into his cheeks. It was odd how a great warrior like himself seemed so comfortable in peace; Guinevere nearly always found herself growing restless and nervous in any lack of action, and as far as she knew, the other knights were the same way. “Grace is a quality that is sorely lacking in this world.”

Guinevere arched an eyebrow at him and plucked up a bit of skirt. “And where is this grace when there’s battles to be won? It’s been rare that I’ve seen something besides force decide a matter.”

“Then I’m sorry for you.” Arthur must have noticed her rising indignation, because he quickly set down his cup and took her one hand in his two. “I wasn’t referring to your sex.”

“I’d hope not. I will be queen, and not a pretty thing on the shelf.” She snapped her free fingers at the far wall, which housed both scrolls and the delicate instruments of the scribe’s trade.

Smiling more in sincerity than irony, Arthur gave her hand a squeeze before dropping it and returning to his meal. “I pity the man that tries to dissuade you.”

An unaccountable blush suddenly seared into Guinevere’s cheeks and made her drop her head. She was embarrassed, and angry that she was so when there was nothing to be embarrassed about, but the annoyance only caused her face to burn all the hotter. So she looked at her nails, still sore and ragged to the quick; her hands themselves were callused and scarred and blotched, but they were passable enough, even if they would never be as fine and delicate as Fulcinia’s had been.

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of those.”

When Guinevere looked up, Arthur was watching her with a steady but nonjudgmental gaze. It almost convinced her that he was being sincere in his kindness.

“They’re hands I bent to fighting.” She held up her fingers to the dim light and indulged herself in a bit of marveling at the quick recovery they had made. “Marius tried to break them, but you healed me.”

“I put the bones back in the sockets. That’s all.” Arthur’s gaze clouded over with humility…and a surprising amount of resentment. He tore more hurriedly into the meat and chewed through his words. “I’m no healer, Guinevere. I merely do what’s needed.”

Not only did he resist the pull of flattery, but he also seemed to actually detest it, as if a compliment were an enemy he had to either defeat or die. A strange attitude for him to take, she was thinking, but then she remembered the elders that had earlier accosted her and demanded she make Arthur do something about the rebellious easterners. Her counter-suggestions had been well-reasoned and sensible, but nevertheless they’d left her with disappointment accusing from every eye, as if they’d expected her to rise up and declare that the malcontents would be smote within the hour. And they knew perfectly well that prolonged internal warfare now, while nearly all the Briton tribes were still reeling from the Saxons, was decidedly not in their best interest.

“And I’m no queen,” she said in a soft voice, clenching her fingers on her knees. “Not yet. Not ever to you, I think.”

Blinking his surprise, Arthur of course tried to demur. “You’re—”

“What am I to you?” Nearly all the food was gone, so Guinevere set aside plates and busied herself with wiping Arthur’s hands and mouth, even though he clearly wanted to do that himself. The last few days weren’t much of a recommendation on his ability to care for himself, and that was something at which Lancelot certainly had no talent. “Why did you let me into your bed?”

Arthur didn’t answer her until she had run out of excuses to let her fingers linger on his now-cool skin and had had to sit back, daunted by the invisible but very present barrier of unfamiliarity that lay between them. She’d ridden him, raked nails down his back and felt his mouth bruise her own, but she still didn’t feel comfortable enough to rail at him the way Lancelot did. To just flop down and lay her head on his chest, as if it were simple and unremarkable as breathing.

Lancelot took even the air that sustained him for granted, Guinevere thought with more than a little bitterness. She’d wager that death itself hadn’t taught him a single thing—well, perhaps he’d know how to dodge arrows now. He was, after all, one of Arthur’s knights, and to discount all of him was to discount part of Arthur.

“You still think I’m some kind of hero,” Arthur suddenly said. He spoke like a man with a swollen tongue, trying so hard to make himself understood that he just blurred his words even more. “That’s…that’s humbling in a way that a sword over the neck isn’t. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone trust me that blindly. And yes, my knights follow me wherever I lead, but they do so knowing that I’m as human and vulnerable and wounded as they are. They only have one expectation of me—that I do right.”

“I’m not an awestruck girl.” Guinevere barely held herself from whipping the words across his face. He had seen her dive howling and raging joyful into the muck and blood, and he still thought she saw the world in such a narrow-minded way? “I know what men are capable of as well as you, and in some ways better, I think.”

She started to turn away, but Arthur caught her by the arm and pulled her back. His hands burned through the flimsy stuff of her sleeves and seemed to brand themselves on her bones; she caught her gasp and pinned it to her lower lip with her teeth. “Let go of me.”

“I don’t think I will. Not right away.” And Arthur’s voice was suddenly rough with shadows, dark and shivering with heat. He didn’t hurt her, but she wasn’t able to break free as he tugged her onto his legs and wrapped an arm around her waist. “I never said thank you for how much you’ve done in the past three days, while I was waiting to die.”

“I don’t understand you!” Guinevere blurted, still struggling against him. She grabbed at his hands and tried to pry off his fingers, but he merely trapped her own in between his, and then he rested his chin on her shoulder like a loving husband. The contrast between the warmth coiling into her belly and the cold realization of their true situation made Guinevere snarl and snap, but Arthur stroked his palm over her side and she helplessly gentled. “I don’t understand you, and I don’t know if I ever will. Damn you for that.”

A low, sarcastic chuckle fell from Arthur’s lips, which were nearly grazing her shoulder. “You aren’t the only one.”

He was too strong, and Guinevere reluctantly forced herself still. She could strike when he weakened.

Oddly enough, Arthur didn’t follow up on his clear advantage, and instead retreated into a thoughtful, almost melancholy tone. “You’re beautiful and intelligent and so fierce that even if there weren’t…other complications, I think Lancelot would still be wary of you. And Marius never broke you—he did the others, and they’ll always bear marks of him. You won’t.”

Guinevere swirled her tongue in the bitterness gathering in her mouth. “So you respect me.”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t tell you now that you’re very like him, and that I thought you would…distract me from his leaving. Because I did believe that he would go.” Arthur finally let her go, his warm body falling away to leave her freezing in the solitude of comprehension. His fingers drifted over her shoulder, possibly in an attempt to soften the blows his words were leaving on her, but they soon departed. It was impossible to say whether Guinevere was sad or angry or relieved at that. “I thought that I could bear it, if I had a hope of starting something new.”

“So I’m him, only in a woman’s body,” she said, correcting her earlier statement.

Arthur sat up again, and he moved so quickly that the mattress violently shook. Startled, Guinevere twisted about with a question half-off her tongue, but was promptly silenced by his eyes. They were backlit with a blazing green, far more livid than any poor imitation of foxfire, and the black rings about those brilliant irises seemed to constrict Guinevere’s lungs so that she could hardly breath.

“Then it was a matter of not having a choice, and only being able to see one of you at a time, because you’re both so—you break my vision. Now—now I can see the differences.” Long eyelashes snapped down, bars that should have been too frail to contain the sheer _life_ behind them. Muscle by muscle, from clenched jaw to hunched shoulders to fists locked in the sheets, Arthur slumped into the bed. He rolled on his side and rubbed at his temples, the half of his mouth that Guinevere could see wrenching itself into a pained grimace. “I see…a good deal more since before my last waking.”

“Merlin…” Guinevere stared down at Arthur, looking over every inch of this man that, despite all his modesty, was not like other men. He’d drawn her eyes to him for other reasons, but they stayed on him now because he was most compelling thing she’d ever seen, even if she couldn’t explain the why of it. “Merlin said there was another sorcerer, and what you said to Lancelot…”

The grimace twisted into a razor-sharp smile, but its blade was facing inward. “I did something, and then I had to learn about what I did. My fainting before…I suppose it’s quicker than sending to Sarmatia for a wonder-worker, but it still doesn’t recommend itself as a teaching method.”

“What did you do?” Even as she asked, Guinevere could already feel the answer frosting her insides. She snatched at Arthur’s elbow and held on as tightly as she could, suddenly and inexplicably terrified that he would vanish before her very eyes.

“I stole Lancelot from Merlin. He’s mine now, and he’ll stay that way till I die. And…and I have to stay in Britain. How long is anyone’s guess.” When Arthur laughed this time, it was a strangled little sound that slithered, ugly and unwanted and nearly hateful, between the space that separated them. “Long enough to see you queen in everyone’s eyes. At least. I’m sorry, Guinevere, but I’m afraid that I’ll make a very poor king. You deserve better.”

“Don’t-- _ever_ \--tell me what I deserve.” It felt fleetingly good to grate her rage and frustration into words that visibly bit into Arthur.

But then he looked up and fixed her with a gaze as drained and as draining as the sickly moon in the winter night. “Then tell me that you won’t try to do the same thing to me if I die before you.”

Guinevere choked, unable to say or do anything except struggle with the lump of fury and sorrow in her throat. By the time she’d freed herself of it and had sucked in enough breath for speech, Arthur had twisted away from her to face the wall.

Well, he could have his guilt-ridden morality, if he treasured it that much, and she would fall back on herself as she’d always had.

Pride carried her out the door, and even kept her chin up and her tears down till she reached the privacy of the hastily-designated council chamber. Then she collapsed into the nearest chair and cried so silently that the approaching group of tribal leaders almost caught her at it.

* * *

Lancelot fiddled with the last piece of crust remaining from the food he’d unknowingly carried off from Arthur’s room. He had a full belly, a fairly comfortable place lounging on a bench, and he wasn’t dulled by exhaustion. By all rights his mind should’ve been the clearest in the entire garrison, but in actual fact it was a morass of doubts and grievances slinging themselves at each other.

“You know, it’s not as much his fault as he thinks. As you think.” Gawain was still hanging around, calmly sharpening Lancelot’s swords because he’d already worked through all his own weapons. He was probably botching the job, but Lancelot didn’t feel a terrible need to correct him. After all, it wasn’t like death was permanent any more, so who needed great weapons? Especially with Arthur’s strong arm for protection.

Disgust tasted just as bad as it felt. Making a face at his thoughts, Lancelot leaned over and spat on the floor. He could hear Gawain shifting uneasily beside him, but he knew better than to fear any retribution from the Christian God. His resurrection had pretty much proved that that high deity had less than perfect control over Britain.

The rasping noises stopped, and Gawain fixed him with a mild, firm look. “It’s not. Lancelot—think about it. How long could Arthur possibly have been studying magic?”

“He has a small library of scrolls. Could be a lot of tricks hidden in those.” It was easy to see where Gawain’s point was leading, but Lancelot was still too damned angry to do so. Arthur had been less than fair to him, and then the man had had to be so fucking apologetic and sad-eyed about it, as if he knew exactly how Lancelot was feeling. And he didn’t.

“And he could’ve at least had the decency to be smug about it,” Lancelot muttered.

A high screech made him start up just in time to see Gawain finish shoving his swords back in their sheathes and toss them at him. He snatched them up, barely keeping himself from getting a faceful of steel, and then glared at Gawain’s impassive face. “What was that for?”

“You know as damned well as I do that Arthur’s never even considered such things. Remember how much he laughed at Alymere’s ghost stories?” Gawain threw Lancelot a contemptuous look as he got off the bench. “He was either a Christian or a rational man, or both. But he wasn’t a magician until last night.”

“So he really didn’t know what he was doing. Does that still excuse him the responsibility for making me a slave?” Lancelot wrestled off the straps tangled around his hands and started to pitch the swords into a corner, but as he was, he glimpsed the old, tattered rabbit’s foot dangling from them. It was a stupid thing to do, but he laid his swords back in his lap and picked off the little charm, recalling the memory behind it with no small sense of irony.

The one time he’d mentioned it to Arthur, it’d been in this chapel. The other man had carefully looked over the tiny bit of fur and claw, then nodded toward the cross on the wall and asked if he couldn’t be allowed the same thoughts of protection. Arthur had bent the last word of his question, sounding as if he hated to mention it, and when Lancelot had pressed him, he had simply said that the only thing he had left of either parent was his father’s sword and that a man couldn’t wish on something like that for peace.

“He never laughed at that, even though the rest of us did.” Gawain poked the rabbit’s foot, then let out an amused snort when Lancelot reflexively curled his fingers around it. “Honestly, do you two always have to be so fucking dramatic? And he didn’t make you a slave.”

Lancelot started. “You are such a—”

“All you have to do is take out one of those—” jerking his chin toward the swords “—walk back to Arthur’s room and cut his throat. And you’re free. You jackass—I bet he’d even lift his chin so you could get a better angle.”

“He would not!” But even as Lancelot mouthed the words, he knew they would ring false in the tremulous echoes of the chapel. Arthur would, and he’d do it gladly because he would finally be able to think that he’d done sufficient penance.

Being a sensible man, Gawain merely stood and watched as Lancelot tried to shrivel in on himself.

“Why the fuck are you always so reasonable?” Because Lancelot tried to be, but his temper and Arthur inevitably sent him spiraling off into a fit, and Arthur tried so hard to be, but he invariably ended up thinking too much. It shouldn’t be that difficult, and yet it was.

Gawain’s laughter had a sad undertone to it, and he wrapped his arms around himself as if suddenly cold—or alone. He stared out one of the tiny slit-windows as he answered. “Because that’s all we lesser men have, great Lancelot. I can look at you and then think on Tristan’s grave, and I can afford not to be jealous or angry because my reason points out that you’re suffering more than the value of your resurrection is worth.”

“Death always seems easier than life.” In truth, it wasn’t. If Lancelot closed his eyes, he could remember the brutal snap of the arrow into his chest, the jerking interrupted leap his heart had taken when it’d been transfixed by the bolt, the sudden agony of knowing that he was going to lose. He could remember what it was like to be permanently divided from Arthur.

And now he was permanently cleaved to the man, no matter what Gawain had said. They both knew that Lancelot could barely think of Arthur dying without wanting to retch, let alone—let alone seek freedom at the cost of _him_.

“There’s nothing stopping you from killing yourself, either.” Calm and practical as Gawain’s tone was, now that Lancelot was truly looking at him, it was easy to see just how pale and disturbed the other man had gone in the few short minutes of their conversation. Gawain licked his lips and avoided Lancelot’s eyes as he added, “Now that Arthur knows what can be done, I find it difficult to believe that he’d force this on you again.”

“The effort not to do it would kill him,” Lancelot replied. His voice was growing softer and softer, and given the kind of thoughts it had to express, he couldn’t really blame it. Before he had died, he doubted that he would’ve been even capable of forming such ideas in his head, let alone discuss them so…coolly. Even now, he suspected that a good deal of his composure was due to the dulling numbness that had fallen over him after he’d turned his back on Arthur and walked out.

Gawain sighed and tilted his head back, as if he were catching the relief of a nonexistent breeze. “For such an arrogant bastard, you’re very good at not noticing how important you are to him. So much so that he’s willing to forgo what he wants for what he thinks you want, even if he’ll be by far the worse for it.”

“Oh, I doubt that. He’s a strong men, and Guinevere is very pretty and clever and—and I think she loves him now, even if she came to him for different reasons before.” Lancelot was still undecided as to whether he would rather have continued to fight Rome for Arthur’s attention, but he wasn’t so blind as to not acknowledge that the woman was a formidable opponent. Of course, there was a difference between that and worthiness.

“Guinevere,” Gawain acerbically drawled, “Isn’t the one Arthur tore away from death—with whatever help Merlin gave there. He likes her well enough, and possibly might grow to like her more, but you’re still the one who holds him. Lancelot, he was trying to will himself to death after you died, and he damn well almost succeeded.”

And Lancelot wanted to believe Gawain, but fifteen years of gazing after Arthur and not getting more than the occasional inscrutable glance back made it difficult. “He took long enough to let me know that.”

Something convulsed Gawain’s face. He grabbed for the back of the bench and tightened his grip till his knuckles were bone-white, shaking his head and choking on unintelligible fragments of words. Concerned, Lancelot reached for him, but the other man flung himself away and snarled at him. In all the years that they’d known each other, Lancelot had never seen Gawain so enraged. Not even during the heaviest fighting, or the dreary, mournful aftermath of retrieving the broken bodies of their fallen comrades. “Fine, you stupid bastard. Be that way. Talk like that when I can see Arthur’s marks all over you, when you know damned well that the only way anyone could ever really hurt Arthur was through you. You call yourself a _slave_ \--well, if that’s so then I can’t see why anyone would want to be a master.”

The other man was halfway out of the chapel before Lancelot had recovered enough wits to jump over the bench back, and Gawain was slamming the door shut before Lancelot had even gotten halfway to it. “Wait! Gawain! Damn it, Gawain!”

Furious footsteps stomping away were all Lancelot heard. Cursing everything and everyone he could think of, including himself, he slammed his back against the door and let the pain soak through him. Then he slid down to sit on the floor, letting himself swim in the mindless burning of new bruises.

It was too dark, he absently thought. No wonder Arthur was so depressed, spending so much time in such abysmal surroundings. Man needed light.

And then there was light: a thousand little flames leaping out of nothing, alighting on every sliver of candlewax that they could find. Lancelot stared at them, dimly feeling his jaw swing open.

He never was sure why he lifted his hand then, but he did and there was a tiny flicker of yellow-red dancing in the hollow of his palm. It grew as he watched, seeming to engulf his entire world, but he didn’t feel any pain. Not any more. And he saw so _much_.

He saw Arthur.

* * *

After leaving Arthur and Lancelot, Galahad had spent the past few hours wandering about the garrison, watching as the Britons swiftly appropriated the buildings for new uses. Rome thought herself the ineradicable Empire, but it was clear that her stamp here didn’t reach beyond the topmost layer of the land. Britain was Britain, no matter who ruled.

His steps eventually found him Merlin, which he later supposed was predictable enough. At the moment, however, the sight of the man turned his stomach and did nothing for the length of his temper. “Well, here’s a pretty picture.”

Sticky red dribbled from both corners of Merlin’s mouth and haphazardly stained his clothes, which were far too thin for the cold afternoon. More blood and phlegm streaked the grass around his feet, which were bony with long claw-like toes. As Galahad watched, Merlin hawked up another gobbet of darkish blood clots and spit, splattering the gross combination over his knee. He listlessly wiped at it, but didn’t otherwise move from his position staring at Arthur’s rooms.

The ire in Galahad died as quickly as it had blazed up, and he almost knelt down to clean the man’s face before he remembered just how many knights had died at Merlin’s instigations. “Pathetic, isn’t it? You’d think the change of rule would be something glorious and hopeful.”

“Rule hasn’t changed,” Merlin mumbled, words both thick and hollow. “Not yet.”

“What are you talking about? Rome’s gone, Saxons are gone, Arthur and Guinevere are taking control and you’re here, going crazy in the dirt.” The wind suddenly shrieked past, shivering both Galahad’s body and mind. He instinctively put his hand to his hilt, ignoring the complaints of his still-recovering body. No one else was around, but in the dense obscuring dusk that fell on Britain, that could never be taken for safety.

Merlin switched his focus to Galahad then, rheumy eyes clearing to the razor lucidity that had haunted the knights for so long. “Arthur fought me over his knight. He won.”

“Did he? Good for him.” As irritating as Lancelot was, Merlin still had no right to touch him in any way, or do whatever he’d tried to do. Bastard sorcerer didn’t have a clue as to the real Arthur if he’d thought that he could use Lancelot to turn his king into a puppet.

“He won, but I haven’t let go. I’m not dying fast enough.” Oddly enough, Merlin spoke like he was disappointed about that. “I wanted everything to go to Guinevere. He was only supposed to help.”

Galahad rocked back on his heels, not quite sure what to make of this strange confession. “Maybe you should’ve told them that? It’s not like he wanted Britain, but you made it so he thought he didn’t have any choice.”

Those eyes snapped to his and seized his gaze in an implacable grip. Merlin suddenly stood up, staggering like a drunkard even with the help of his staff, and seized Galahad’s shoulder in a punishing hold. For a dying man, he was incredibly strong and wouldn’t be put off even when Galahad shoved a sword-tip beneath his chin.

“Listen to me,” Merlin hissed, sweat rolling down his bloody chin. “Listen. One of us has to die to finish it—I’ve always known that would be true, but I thought I would have longer before I had to go. Long enough so that they wouldn’t blame him. Or her.”

“Blame…” Of course they would. Badon Hill or not, a sizable minority of Britons obviously thought it’d be a great idea to whip around and kill the knights. They loved Guinevere but didn’t implicitly trust her yet, and they were ambivalent about Arthur. Especially since he’d been stumbling about white and sick and dead-eyed for the past few days and hadn’t looked as if he were capable of defending himself against a fly, let alone the many hungry-faced Woads that had gathered for the battle and still hadn’t departed.

Panic didn’t come in parts, but in one huge burst that nearly split Galahad’s skin from his bones. He grabbed Merlin by the arms and shook the secretive son of a bitch till teeth rattled. “What’s going to happen? What did you order done, you fucking bastard?”

“I didn’t order anything.” Merlin slammed a heel onto Galahad’s boot, crushing his toes and making him let go. He stumbled back, then had to lunge forward to catch Merlin before the man tumbled down the hill. “They saw, and they drew their own conclusions.”

“Who—the easterners.” And while they were usually skulking about everywhere, just waiting to spring on a weakness of the knights, Galahad hadn’t seen one in some time. “Shit.”

He turned to go and warn the others, but a heavy weight slammed into his back and nearly knocked his feet out from under him. When he tried to push Merlin off, the other man dug thin sharp fingers into Galahad’s wrist till bones ground pain out from between them. “You have to take me to Guinevere. If you want them to have a chance, I need to speak with her. Or else Arthur and I will both die, still fighting each other.”

Then Merlin collapsed in Galahad’s arms, eyes rolling back into his head. That was a sight with which Galahad had become far too familiar, and one that never failed to frighten him.

Nevertheless, he forced himself to pick up the man and to ignore the slickness that coated his hands. Then he headed down the hill at a dead run.

* * *

“He is not responsible for Merlin’s condition!” Guinevere snapped, voice just shy of a shout. “Merlin is dying because of his own actions. If you ask him, he’ll admit it.”

The head of the eastern delegation didn’t change his expression. “I don’t need to ask him. The facts are clear enough—everyone knows that Merlin and Arthur had some kind of argument, and now Merlin is failing while the so-called king skulks in his rooms, working his malicious spells.”

Inwardly fear chilled her marrow, but Guinevere forced her outward appearance to remain dismissive and disdainful. “I assure you, Arthur is doing nothing of the sort. Everyone also knows that he suffered grave injuries during the battle, and it’s ridiculous to have expected him to have already recovered.”

“I don’t expect him to recover, given the loss of his beloved Rome,” the insufferable prick said. The rest of his group shared his stony attitude; no matter how closely Guinevere looked, she couldn’t see an exploitable weakness anywhere. 

She did see sympathy, and she was hard-put to keep her temper in check. So they thought her too besotted with a handsome man to be rational, and believed her to be that shallow-minded? Well, if they didn’t get their sorry faces out of her sight soon, they would feel the mettle of their queen. And they would remember that she didn’t carry weapons merely for show, and Arthur hadn’t triumphed over them in the past just because he looked fine on a horse.

“It’s not right that a Roman should continue to rule over us,” said another man. “We’ve been fighting against that for all these years, and now we’re to tamely accept it?”

Guinevere set her teeth against each other and began to reach for her dagger. If she moved quickly enough, she could switch it for the sword of the nearest man. “He’s not Roman. His mother was a Briton.”

“And his father was a Sarmatian knight, and his religion is Rome’s. We’ve seen the chapel. We’ve seen what goes in it.”

For a brutally long instant, Guinevere felt her blood freeze. She hoped that her face had done the same, and hadn’t betrayed anything. “He’s renounced his Christianity,” she replied as coolly as she could.

“What about his sorcery?” demanded the first man. “By all that I own, I will not see his knights lord over my children’s children. They don’t deserve eternal sovereignty.”

“We’d be perfectly happy with a peaceful life and an easy death.” Gawain and Bors swung themselves into the room, weapons casually hanging from their hands. “And how is my queen?” Gawain called.

The easterners whipped about, snarling, but they soon fell back when other faces showed behind the knights-- _Briton_ faces. Grinning, Gawain glanced over his shoulder. “If you’re going to yell, you should shut the door first. There are many concerned ears in this place.”

“I should’ve known you wouldn’t listen. Your people have never—”

Guinevere rounded the table and knocked the easterner back a step with the slap she’d been itching to give ever since the conversation had started. “It’s not a matter of peoples, unless you want to give the Saxons easy mouthfuls of Britain instead of making them choke. We’re all one people, and if you were intelligent enough to get past your pettiness, you’d remember that that was what Merlin’s life-long goal was. That that’s what _my_ life-long goal is. I—am—queen. There are two rulers, not one, and the next time you forget that will be your last.”

She pushed past his stuttering reply and stalked to Gawain’s side, only then noticing the tic in his jaw muscle. He and Bors fell in slightly behind her, but as soon as they were out of earshot of the arguing Briton nobles, he caught her arm and drew her back. “I noticed someone spying on the chapel when I left Lancelot, so I locked the door. He’s got his swords, so he should be fine.”

“Thank you,” Guinevere whispered back. And even though it was Lancelot they were talking about, she genuinely meant it.

“But I think someone needs to check on Arthur,” Gawain continued. “Lancelot isn’t being very coop—Galahad! What on earth—”

The other man had just turned the corner ahead of them, and barely managed to halt before he crashed into Bors. He was carrying Merlin, who looked so much worse than he had earlier that Guinevere barely recognized him.

“I don’t know, but he said I had to bring him to her.” Galahad tried to drop the muttering, near-comatose man in Guinevere’s arms. When she reflexively backed away, he grumbled and propped Merlin up against the wall instead. “How’s Arthur?”

“Why? What did Merlin say?” Guinevere began to turn towards him, but then Merlin suddenly came alive and jerked her back to face him. He wheezed out black droplets that hissed as they hit the stone and nearly fell on her, but caught himself at the last minute.

Bors lifted his kukri. “Lady, I don’t think—”

“You will go to Arthur and you will leave us alone,” Merlin rasped. He raised his chin to send a blearing, burning, yellowing gaze around the hallway. When Bors grunted disagreement and took another step forward, Merlin twisted to fully focus his glower on the man.

Past experience that still dipped into Guinevere’s nightmares had taught her the futility of resisting Merlin when he was this far gone. She laid her hand on Bors’ arm and gently steered him aside. “I’ll be fine. Someone does need to look in on Arthur; I think he believes Lancelot hates him now.”

“If that was true, things might be a little simpler,” Galahad muttered, not entirely in jest, but not entirely in resentment either. He spun on his heel and walked off; after a moment, Bors followed. Gawain gave Guinevere a long, considering glance, then nodded to her and did the same.

Gnarled things coiled around Guinevere’s wrist, drawing her attention back to Merlin, who swayed even as his withered fingers bit more deeply into her flesh. He had aged so much in so few hours—even the feral speck of gold in his eyes was fading now, like the sun tumbling beneath the horizon. She almost forgot to not pity him.

“I’m going to die,” Merlin whispered. “Soon. In a few minutes. And when I do—you have to act. Arthur…when he was forcing me back…he didn’t know what to take, and so he took everything. It’s too much too fast, and if you don’t get some of it back, it’ll always stay with him.”

“Only a king, and no queen.” Guinevere pressed fingers to her lips, imprisoning some kind of howl behind them. She suddenly understood how Lancelot felt, caged in the fingers of someone else’s hand. As much as Arthur meant to her, he wasn’t _her_. They were separate people with full lives, and Guinevere intended for it to stay that way. She hadn’t thrown herself into the fighting for so long only to now fade into a pretty wisp on the edge of the scene.

Moreover, Arthur didn’t want that. He’d made his opinion on the subject clear enough—so he didn’t know what he’d done.

The relief within Guinevere was so overwhelming that she almost didn’t notice the second in which she had actually doubted Arthur. Perhaps Lancelot wasn’t being so unreasonable after all, if he’d had to experience this wavering in faith many times over the years.

Merlin nodded and nearly collapsed after it, but she grabbed his shoulders and steadied his next words. “I’ve been loosening his hold on that part—I’m not such a fool as to still go after his favored knight—and you have a chance.” He took her hands and wrapped them around his staff. “Hold on to this.”

After a moment, Guinevere had to ask. “And?”

“And you have to go against Arthur. Now leave me.” He shoved her away and stumbled into a nearby room, coughing as if his lungs were ripping apart inside him.

For a long, long second, Guinevere wanted to follow Merlin. She wanted to sit at his feet, their knees bumping, and listen to his terse wisdom so she could later string together each bit into beautiful necklaces of foresight. She wanted to snap at his heels, begging for responsibility but in truth holding back so the burden remained on his back. She wanted to be a child again.

Then she shook her head, dismissing such ridiculous fancies, and turned her back on him. On her way to the chapel, she did find some servants and sent them to ease his last moments, but that was all. Her road was elsewhere now, and she and Merlin had nothing to do with each other any more.

She hoped that she still had something to do with Arthur, but even that wasn’t certain now that—now that they would be set against each other. No matter how brief that event might be, it would change things, and she wasn’t certain as to how much so. But she could ensure that he at least lived.

When she reached the chapel, she walked right between two implacable forces. The eastern leaders had unexpectedly come raging up from behind and had intercepted her, shouting about Merlin. From the sound of things, they had accidentally glimpsed the dying man, and had rushed away before Merlin could explain himself. The old bastard, Guinevere snarled to herself—and for the first time she didn’t immediately rebuke herself for thinking it. He wouldn’t make it easy for his successors.

“I told you, it’s not of Arthur’s doing! And I speak as one who owes Merlin everything, who’s as grieved as you to see his decline! But it’s his choice to do so—” They roared at her, drowning out the rest of her words; arms grabbed at Guinevere and dragged her back while more started to wrench at the chapel door, convinced that they’d find the evidence of Merlin’s wrongdoing in there.

Abandoning all dignity, she kicked and bit and laid about with the staff, but the space was too narrow and there were too many. The tide of the crowd was too strong, carrying her further and further from the door, and she could only watch as the timbers started to splinter—

\--then the staff _twisted_ in her hands, and she found herself diving at the floor. A bare instant later, the place exploded with screaming flames.

People going up like dried grass in high summer, their last cries swirling quick into the oily, foul smoke that clouded Guinevere’s mind. She curled around the staff, fitting fingers against the pulse of the carvings that veined its length, and went deep inside. But the red and yellow and orange followed her even there, trying to bind her down with strange symbols. The ones Merlin had drawn, the ones Gawain had recognized.

“Oh—damn it, can’t anyone not faint?” came a distant voice. It whined and buzzed, stinging her lassitude into shaking harder, into snapping the script and breaking free. A glimmer of green, like the spring forests, called to her and she plunged after it.

“Guinevere!”

It hurt, but she discovered she could detach enough of herself to go back and work her mouth. “Lancelot. You killed them.”

“Well, they looked rather determined to kill me, so I think I was justified.” Shaky laugh. “Is that Merlin’s staff? He really had no idea what he was doing, did he?”

“You’re killing all of us. Leave me alone.” She could just touch the green, just graze it and feel it start to slip cool and comforting within her. But then something yanked it back, tore it out by the roots and it hurt so much, but she caught the edge and held. Like hauling rope, she strained inch by inch to recover it. Whatever was on the other end fought, but its efforts were random and unfocused—because it didn’t know. “Lancelot. Go to Arthur.”

Fingers dragging her up, feeling her face. “Your eyes…”

“Arthur!” she snapped. “Can you live with him or not?”

“What do you care?” he retorted, shaking her.

Because she wanted Arthur so badly, but—but even that couldn’t break her open to him. Because it was too late in this life for them to know each other soul-deep and heart-wide, because she knew that no matter how hard they tried she would never be able to be so easy around him as to take him for granted.

No, she wanted to tell him. No, I wouldn’t do the same to you as you did to Lancelot. Because doing that cost you Rome forever, and in the end, I cannot give up Britain. Not even for you.

“Because I don’t want him to die, you fool.” Guinevere needed all her strength together and turned toward struggling against Arthur’s will, but she forced herself to say a little more. “Because he deserves to have you. Whether or not you deserve to have him.”

Lancelot sucked in a breath as she drifted back to her own war. His fingers touched her brow, and then his lips did. “Sometimes you’re not so hateful to me.”

Then he picked her up, and that was the last she knew of the solid world.

* * *

Guinevere was barely gone before the fever was back, incinerating till Arthur thought there shouldn’t have been any of himself left. Then it always discovered more, and another wave of pain would pulse through him. Though his eyes were wide open, he could barely see for the stretching distortion of the melting world. He struggled out of the bed and flopped onto the floor, which cold stone brought a temporary relief. Sighing, he spread out his limbs and soaked up the coolness, but soon even the stone couldn’t leach the heat from him quick enough.

Soon, later—they were all relative measurements, and he could no longer orient himself in time or space. At any moment he was miles up in the sky and centuries back in history, watching Julius Caesar make his first landing. Then he was down in the dirt and somewhen distant in a world of metal and stinking gases and brutal yellow lights.

It was still Britain. It was always Britain. He knew that now, and if he was himself, he thought he might hate it. In any case, he had never had much reason to love it, and he didn’t know whether he could now.

Guinevere loved it. She cherished it with the same depth of emotion that Arthur had once saved for Rome, only her adoration was sharpened by a ferocity that rivaled the pull he felt whenever Lancelot was near. She’d be an excellent queen.

And she would have made a perfect mate if they’d met sooner, before disappointment and disillusionment had bent Arthur into the broken pathetic thing he was now. When he looked at her, he remembered what it was to be young and dreaming and capable of remaking the world. When he looked at her, he thought that not everything had gone to ruin if such strong, determined leaders still rose from among the people.

But when he looked at himself, he saw only one whole strand left to his unraveled life. There was only one part that had never snapped, and now he was going to have to cut it himself in order to free Lancelot. It was too late to weave a new tapestry, and so he would just have to take his chances with the darkness beyond the frayed threads.

No. It wasn’t darkness, but red fire that beckoned to him now. So Christianity had gotten that much right.

He only wished he could apologize to Guinevere, because he had promised to lead her people, and he had truly meant to keep that promise.

* * *

When Lancelot reached Arthur’s rooms, he found only three knights frantically tearing apart the place. Gawain heaved aside the bed and looked in the small space between it and the wall, then groaned in frustration. He wiped at his face and caught sight of Lancelot. “You! What happened to her?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t you noticed that I’m always last to know everything?” Lancelot pushed past Galahad, who was shuffling through a pile of extra blankets stacked in the corner, and carefully swung Guinevere through the doorway. The staff she was wound around banged several times against the doorframe, but it couldn’t be helped. “Where’s—”

“Who do you think we’re looking for?” Bors asked, stomping past. “I’m going to look outside.”

Frowning, Gawain had come up and was now studying Guinevere’s tense face. “It’s like Arthur earlier.”

“Look, I just burned to death a lot of important-looking Britons that were trying to kill me. Something about Arthur murdering Merlin. What’s going on?” Lancelot eased past Gawain and set Guinevere down on the bed, where she promptly thrashed the blankets off before abruptly slumping into an eerie stillness.

“Burned?” Galahad stopped his search and turned around.

Arthur had taken sick again. Somehow Lancelot knew that, as if he could taste the man’s fever on his tongue.

Well, he had, and it had been…fifteen years of imagining hadn’t even compared. Of course, then Arthur had had to ruin it. Ruin it and send Lancelot running because he’d…because he’d never seen that side of Arthur before, that particle that was capable of doing whatever was necessary to keep him. He thought that he’d known every part of the man, and then it turned out that even he didn’t. It had shaken a faith that he hadn’t ever realized he’d had.

“Yes, burned. Apparently, I came back a little different.” Lancelot raised his hand and rolled flames over the backs of his fingers. He watched the yellow-gold of them reflect off the shock and fear in the eyes of his fellow knights. “I’m beginning to think that—”

The world heaved ashes into his mouth and nose and eyes. He dropped to one knee, choking and clawing at his burning eyes, clearing them just in time to see Guinevere sit bolt upright on the bed.

“Merlin’s dead,” she said, glassy-eyed and staring at nothing.

Lancelot breathed, and he smelled the flames beginning to catch. “Arthur’s—” He flung himself to the window and shoved open the shutters. In the window pane was the reflection of Guinevere, rocking the staff against herself and keening as she wrestled with some invisible thing. Gawain uttered an oath and turned towards her, but Lancelot remained peering out, looking for the man he knew should be out there.

He didn’t have to wait long. Bors came pelting into view, dragging along a half-dressed Arthur that didn’t seem to be fully conscious. After them followed a small crowd of Britons who were shouting angry questions at Arthur. “Galahad! Gawain! Out—oh, fuck. Bors, get away from him! Get back!”

Surprised, Bors glanced at Lancelot, and in that moment of distraction, Arthur suddenly exerted himself and broke free. He lurched several steps away, _towards_ the Britons, and there he stopped. His back was to the window and so Lancelot couldn’t see his face, but the abrupt quiet that fell over the others was a fairly good indication of what expression Arthur was wearing.

Everything tilted again, strings snapping and recoiling. Lancelot gasped and fell like he had lead in his knees; his chin slammed on the windowsill and blood flooded his mouth.

“I did it,” Guinevere gasped, weak but triumphant. Then she swore and flew over to Lancelot’s side, staring out the window. “Oh, no. He let go. He’s—” she hit Lancelot, and then she hit him again and again, as if a dam had broken “—you son of a bitch! He’s doing this for you!”

Still dazed, Lancelot could only blink up at her. “What?”

She grabbed his hair and shoved his face against the window, then almost doubled over in a violent sob. “I told you to go to him.”

Arthur burst into flames.

One ragged breath. Two. Then the fire vanished to reveal nothing but a clump of ashes on the ground and the feeling of utter disconnection in Lancelot’s breast. He could move because he stood up, and he could speak because he whispered “No,” but he couldn’t sense anything beyond himself.

His mind held only two thoughts. The first was that this was complete freedom. The second was that he didn’t want any of it.

Fists were still hitting his back. Some of the blows were forceful enough to send him almost rocking into the side of the window, but Lancelot made no attempt to stop Guinevere. “I lost him,” he said, inane and numbed and suddenly so very, very dead to everything.

And when it came down to it, sometimes having a choice at every step of the way didn’t matter. Sometimes life moved so quickly that the only way to handle it was to grab at every good thing seen along the way and hold onto it for as long as possible, because it was never certain that that chance would come up again.

Sometimes some things were worth a loss of freedom. Loyalty and love both depended on a degree of surrender, but the returns were worth more than enough to make up for that. If one was smart enough to realize when one had those returns, and Lancelot hadn’t been. Like Guinevere had said, he’d taken Arthur for granted in certain ways. He’d thought he knew Arthur, and knew how much the other man was willing to risk—cautious, dutiful, dependent on other men’s orders—but he hadn’t. This was something that he was supposed to do—something that he had done, never expecting Arthur to do the same.

“Something…” Gawain sounded like he was strangling; he audibly swallowed before continuing on. “Something’s happening to the ashes.”

Lancelot absently looked at the pitiful heap, too small to have ever made up a whole man. Then he shocked into alertness and looked again.

“That story you told me about the bird,” Guinevere breathed to Gawain. She pivoted and nearly lunged for the door, but hesitated. With a little snarl, she grabbed Lancelot’s arm and yanked him along. “Come on. I’m not going to live through this again.”

He went with her, feet moving sluggishly at first but then picking up speed, feeling himself come back to life as if he was the one swirling out of the ashes. Soon he was going so fast that Guinevere was barely hanging on, tripping over her skirts and skidding an inch past corners. Lancelot hardly noticed.

“If he throws you off, you’re a dead man,” she was hissing. “If he even gives me the slightest hint that he doesn’t want you anymore, I’m going to kill you.”

“Fair enough. Same to you.” And then they were outside, stiff cold air hitting Lancelot like a wall, but nothing was going to keep him from this. 

Arthur was right there, and when Lancelot slid into him, he grunted and gave a little just like he had before. He smelled like ashes, but warm tarry ones, ready to be relit at a moment’s notices, and he felt like a bundle of tingling heat that made Lancelot wrap himself around the other man, not wanting to miss a single prickle, and his fingers pressing into Lancelot’s side and nape of neck were the last links of the chain between them clicking together.

“I want to stay. I want to stay. I don’t care about choices or freedom or anything, I just want—that’s what I’ll always choose.” Lancelot was babbling into Arthur’s neck, and he knew he sounded like an idiot, but rational speech wouldn’t do justice to the indescribable surge of relief and joy inside him. “Don’t do that again.”

Arthur twitched, though he didn’t loosen his grip. “I won’t leave you, but I think I have to burn again. Sooner or later. It seems that the land won’t let me die.”

He wasn’t speaking entirely to Lancelot, who reluctantly remembered the presence of others. Guinevere had stopped a bare foot away, her hand half-lifted toward Arthur’s cheek. She didn’t seem to know whether to dare or not—and then he reached out and took her hand, pressing it to his lips. “Still my queen?”

“I’ll have no other king—no other man deserves to rule beside me.” The determination in her eyes lent weight to her declaration, and the aggravation that simmered beside it when she looked at Lancelot promised that their argument was still unfinished.

“Then I’ll endeavor not to disappoint.” Arthur murmured his next words into Lancelot’s ear. “Ever.”

Lancelot swung himself to the side, relaxing enough to enjoy the sight of utterly stunned faces. “You’re going to make it so we never have to discuss this again. If you’re going to burn up, then I want to be there beside you. I can’t—it hurt too much to watch you die.”

“I know. I didn’t mean for you to see that.” Arthur seemed calmer now, sure of himself again. The pallor of sickness was gone as well, and he looked years younger.

“Never mind that. It’s over now.” Guinevere didn’t relinquish her grip on Arthur’s hand as she stepped to his other side and faced her—their—people. “Well? Do you doubt him now?”

It started somewhere off to the left, but spread so quickly to the rest of the gathered people that the origin hardly mattered. Lancelot looked out on the mass of kneeling bodies, and for the first time, he saw a nation.


	4. Epilogue: Cycle of History

“They looked more terrified to me. And I could list the many, many ways why fear is a terrible foundation for a monarchy, but I have a feeling that you stopped listening a few minutes ago.” Arthur leaned back against the wall and pulled Guinevere away from his chest, where she’d been lazily licking the sweat from him. Smiling, she darted in and kissed him before he could say anything else.

On the other side, Lancelot tiredly raised his head from Arthur’s thigh, saw pink tongue flash between the mouths above him and snorted. He nudged at Arthur’s stomach, then hummed little pleased sounds when a hand tangled through his hair. “Of course they’re terrified. Britain’s one gigantic forest, and none of the Britons have this…fire-magic. But they’ll get used to it, and then that’s when we’ll have to worry.”

“You seem very sure of yourself. Suppose that means you’ve made a full recovery.” Nipping down Guinevere’s neck as a distraction, Arthur carefully moved her aside and checked Lancelot’s face for any signs of the man’s earlier franticness. After his sudden return, the other man had determinedly clung to Arthur’s side, stiffening whenever any Briton besides Guinevere came near.

“And you?” Lancelot’s gaze intensified sharply before dropping as he buried his face in the curve of Arthur’s waist. He rubbed his cheek against the top of the bone, stubble leaving reddish rasps on Arthur’s still pale skin, then nuzzled his way up to level his eyes with Arthur.

It took a moment for Arthur to formulate a reply that he thought wouldn’t be too badly misunderstood. The problem with explaining such changes was that no one could ever really know what was meant until after they’d also shared the experience. And Lancelot never would, because while he would burn with Arthur once this lifetime ended, he would do so with the full expectation of resurrection. Whereas Arthur had expected to die that first time.

“I’m better than I was,” he finally said. His thumb drifted out of Lancelot’s hair to fit in the small hollow where skull joined backbone. He rubbed it up and down the ridges of Lancelot’s spine, watching how a slight change in pressure would make the other man’s eyelashes flutter or make him arch a little. “Dying like that…clears your head.”

“There are less drastic ways of doing that.” Guinevere bit at Arthur’s shoulder to get him to face her. She rested her hands on his chest, above his heart, and peered deep into his eyes, almost as if checking him for concussion. “Are you going to give up everything again?”

It was a pertinent question. It was also a blatant attempt to steal Arthur’s attention back, and of course Lancelot saw it only in that light. Arthur quickly slid his palm over the other man’s mouth and pinned Lancelot’s head down, muffling the protests so he could be heard. “No. You have no idea how much doing that hurt. It’s something that can be done only once in every man’s life, I think…and since my sacrifice was rejected, I don’t see the point in pursuing a lost cause.”

“Lost cause indeed.” She rolled her eyes in mockery, but at the same time she was blinking back moistness. When she saw that Arthur had noticed all of it, she blushed and ducked down to poke at Lancelot. “I see you haven’t give up on this one, though.”

With a sullen glare, Lancelot wrenched his mouth free of Arthur’s hand and jabbed her back. “Careful, lady. Unlike me, you’ve only got this lifetime to work with.”

“I think not.” Guinevere eyed their inquiring surprise with more than a touch of smugness. “Arthur and I are equal, you lackbrain. Perhaps not in identical ways…but rest assured, I will not be left behind. Wherever you go, whenever you go, I will be there in some form or another.”

For a tense moment, Arthur thought there was going to be murder right in his bed. And it would have been murder despite the revival that would follow, because if matters came to blows he wouldn’t be able to tolerate any of it.

Then Lancelot slouched back and laughed, humor genuine. So was the consideration in his eyes, but that was understandable. “I salute you, queen. And I admit that you do deserve to be in the hunt, whether or no you deserve to catch the prey.”

That brought Arthur up short. He raised an eyebrow. “Prey.”

Lancelot countered with that irritating innocent look of his. Naturally, there was only one response possible.


End file.
